Born in Medellín, Spain, conquistador Hernán Cortés (c. 1485-1547) first served as a soldier in an expedition of Cuba led by Diego Velázquez in 1511. He ignored orders and traveled to Mexico with about 500 men and 11 ships in 1519, setting his sights on overthrowing ruler ...read more

The 16th-century Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernando de Soto (c. 1496-1542) arrived in the West Indies as a young man and went on to make a fortune in the Central American slave trade. He supplied ships for Francisco Pizarro’s southward expedition and ended up ...read more

An explorer, soldier and conquistador, Francisco Pizarro was Born around 1474 in Trujillo, Spain. As a soldier, he served on the 1513 expedition of Vasco Núñez de Balboa, during which he discovered the Pacific Ocean. Desirous of making his own discoveries and his own fortune, ...read more

Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian-born merchant and explorer who took part in early voyages to the New World on behalf of Spain around the late 15th century. By that time, the Vikings had established settlements in present-day North America as early as 1,000 A.D. and Christopher ...read more

Born into Spanish nobility, Juan Ponce de León (1460-1521) may have accompanied Christopher Columbus on his 1493 voyage to the New World. A decade later, he was serving as governor of the eastern province of Hispaniola when he decided to explore a nearby island, which became ...read more

The explorer Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain: in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502. He was determined to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia, but he never did. Instead, he accidentally stumbled upon the Americas. Though he did not ...read more

Leif Eriksson was the son of Erik the Red, founder of the first European settlement on what is now called Greenland. Around A.D. 1000, Eriksson sailed to Norway, where King Olaf I converted him to Christianity. According to one school of thought, Eriksson sailed off course on ...read more