Early Modern
Corte-Real Brothers' Voyages to Newfoundland (1500–1502)
The voyages gave Portugal a claim to Newfoundland and its fisheries, but both brothers were lost at sea.
Region
Americas
Early Modern
Pedro Álvares Cabral Reaches Brazil (1500): Portugal's Claim
Cabral claimed the land for Portugal, beginning the Portuguese colonisation of what became Brazil.
Early Modern
Columbus's Fourth Voyage (1502–1504): Shipwrecked on Jamaica
Columbus explored the Central American coast but lost all four ships and spent a year stranded on Jamaica before returning to Spain.
Early Modern
Casa de Contratación (1503): Spain's House of Trade in Seville
Seville became the sole legal port for trade with the Spanish Americas, regulated by a royal agency that lasted until 1790.
Early Modern
Encomienda System (1503): Forced Labour in the Spanish Americas
The encomienda became the main early system for exploiting Indigenous labour in Spanish America; royal reforms limited it from 1542 and it slowly declined until its formal abolition in the 18th century.
Early Modern
Waldseemüller Map (1507): The First Map to Name America
The name America entered print and spread across Europe; the only surviving copy was bought by the Library of Congress in 2003.
Early Modern
Balboa Sights the Pacific Ocean (1513): Crossing Panama
Balboa claimed the 'South Sea' for Castile, opening Spanish expansion along the Pacific coast; he was executed in 1519.
Early Modern
Piri Reis Map (1513): The Ottoman Map of the Atlantic World
A surviving fragment of an Ottoman world map that preserves early European knowledge of the Americas, possibly including a lost map by Columbus.
Early Modern
Ponce de León in Florida (1513) and the Fountain of Youth Myth
Ponce de León charted much of the Florida coast, named it La Florida and noted the Gulf Stream, but founded no settlement.
Early Modern
Tlaxcala's Alliance with Cortés (1519): The Decisive Allies
Tlaxcala allied with the Spaniards and supplied tens of thousands of warriors and porters for the war against Tenochtitlan.
Early Modern
Cholula Massacre (1519): Cortés's March to Tenochtitlan
Thousands of Cholulans were killed, the city submitted to the Spaniards, and Cortés's road to Tenochtitlan lay open.
Early Modern
La Malinche (c. 1500-c. 1529): Interpreter of the Conquest
Her translation and diplomacy made Cortés's alliances and negotiations possible, and she became one of the most debated figures in Mexican history.