Pedro alvares cabral: Did you mean...?

A 1635 map of Portuguese Cochin on the southwest coast of India. Cochin (modern Kochi) was a major hub of the spice trade and was colonised by Portugal in the early years of the 16th century. (Livro das Plantas de Todas as Fortalezas, António...

A 20th-century mural by Pedro Subercaseaux showing Diego de Almagro (c. 1475-1538), the Spanish conquistador on his expedition of conquest in Chile from 1535 to 1537.

This map illustrates the expansion of Spanish imperial power following the completion of the Reconquista in 1492 and the voyages of Christopher Columbus (first voyage 1492). Fueled by promises of land, gold, and glory, Spain launched one...

Ferdinand Magellan, or Fernão de Magalhães (c. 1480-1521), was a Portuguese mariner whose expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe in 1519-22 in the service of Spain. Magellan was killed on the voyage in what is today the Philippines...

Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) was a Spanish conquistador who led the conquest of the Aztec Empire in Mexico from 1519. Taking the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1521, Cortés plundered Mesoamerica as he became the first ruler of the new colony...

Prince Henry the Navigator (aka Infante Dom Henrique, 1394-1460) was a Portuguese prince who famously helped capture the North African city of Ceuta, sponsored voyages of exploration with the aim of building colonies in the North Atlantic...

Spain’s rapid expansion into South America followed the consolidation of its Caribbean footholds by 1512, marking a decisive shift from exploration to imperial conquest. Under the reign of Ferdinand II of Aragon (reign1479–1516) and later...

Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1475-1519) was a Spanish conquistador who famously discovered the Pacific Ocean after crossing the isthmus of Panama in 1513. An utterly ruthless adventurer and colonizer, Balboa was as much a danger to his fellow conquistadors...

The Florentine Codex is an encyclopedic accounting of life in 16th-century Mexico and an invaluable resource for understanding the exchange between European and Indigenous cultures during the Spanish conquest. Emerging from a time of societal...

From the 16th to 18th centuries, two treasure fleets sailed each year, one to Mexico and the other to Central America, then part of the Spanish Empire. There they collected precious eastern goods and the riches of the Americas, including...