PORTUGUESE EXPLORATION AND CONQUEST
1300s Portuguese sailors visited the Madeira and Azores islands in the Atlantic Ocean
1394 birth of Henry (the Navigator), third son of John I of Portugal
1415 The Portuguese conquered Ceuta on the Moroccan coast
1419 The Portuguese claimed Madeira; Prince Henry (the Navigator) founded an observatory and navigation school on the southern Portuguese coast at Sagres
1439 The Portuguese claimed the Azores Islands in the eastern Atlantic Ocean
1434 Portuguese sailors reached Cape Bojador on the West African coast
1442 Portuguese sailors reached Cape Blanco on the West African coast
1443 Portuguese sailors reached Arguin Island on the West African coast and fortified it in 1448
1451 Portuguese sailors began to visit the Senegal River regularly
1460 Portuguese sailors reached Sierra Leone; death of Henry the Navigator
1469-1475 After the death of Prince Henry, further Portuguese exploration was directed by a private "contractor" named Fernao Gomes
1471 The Portuguese constructed a fort at El Mina on the "Gold Coast" (modern Ghana)
1469-1475 Portuguese nobles established a planter colony on the island of Fernando Po to produce sugar
1475-1479 Portuguese exploration was interrupted by war with Spain.
1479 The Treaty of Alcacovas forced the Spanish to cease trading along the African coast.
1481-1495 Portuguese exploration resumed again under King John II
1483 The Portuguese explorer, Diogo Cao, discovered the Zaire River and the Portuguese exchanged ambassadors with the king of the Bakongo people.
1487 Pedro da Covilha left Lisbon disguised as a Muslim trader, and traveled overland as far as India. He survived until 1506, but never made it back to Portugal. However, he managed to sent a written report of the Indian Ocean trade routes to King John II in 1490.
1488 Bartholomew Dias reached the Cape of Good Hope at the south end of Africa in 1487 and returned to Portugal with the news
1497/07 Vasco da Gama left Portugal with an sea expedition to India.
1498 Vasco da Gama reached the Swahili Coast of East Africa on his way to India.
1499/09 Vasco da Gama returned to Portugal with spices from India
1500 Pedro Cabral led a second expedition to India along the route explored by da Gama. Along the way, he claimed Brazil for Portugal.
1502 Vasco da Gama led another expedition to India with fourteen ships.
1505-1507 Francisco d'Almeida led an armed fleet to establish Portuguese forts along the East African coast.
1510 By this time, Lisbon was the richest city in Europe.
1510 Afonso d'Alboquerque established a fortified Portuguese post at Goa (India).
1511 Afonso d'Alboquerque reached Malacca (on the Malay Peninsula).
1513 Afonso d'Alboquerque reached China
1515 The Portuguese route to India around Africa was firmly established by this time.
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1530s The Portuguese created trading posts in the African interior along the Zambezi River, but by 1580, they had withdrawn to the coast.
1542-1543 The first Portuguese ships reached Japan.
1556 The Portuguese established a base for trade with China at was Macao (near Hong Kong).
1570 The Portuguese established annual trade at Nagasaki (Japan).
1574 After the trans-Atlantic slave trade began to grow in the 1530s, the Portuguese established additional trading posts on the West African coast, including at Sao Paulo de Loanda, (modern Luanda, Angola).
1578 At the battle of al-Kazar al-Kabir (Morocco), the Portuguese king and all of his heirs, plus 20,000 Portuguese soldiers were all killed.
1581 The Spanish king Philip II asserted the Castilian claim to Portugal, and Portugal lost its independence until 1640.
1591-1599 Operating from their administrative city at Goa (India), Portuguese officials constructed a huge fortress (Fort Jesus) and established their East African administrative headquarters at Mombasa (modern Kenya).
SPANISH EXPLORATION AND CONQUEST
1451 Columbus was born in Genoa, the son of a textile weaver
1469 The marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella united Castile and Aragon to form Spain.
1476 Columbus was shipwrecked off the coast of Portugal. Like his younger brother Bartholomew, he stayed and became a mapmaker.
1479 By this time, Columbus became a sugar-buyer for a firm from Genoa and traveled to the Azores (Atlantic Islands settled by the Portuguese).
About this time, he married a well-born Portuguese woman, Dona Filipa Perestrello
1480s/mid Columbus rose to the rank of "master mariner" in the Portuguese merchant service.
1488 The Portuguese sailor, Bartholomew Dias, reached the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, ending any chance that the Portuguese
authorities would support Columbus' plan for an expedition to the west.
1491 After three years of lobbying, Columbus convinced Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to support him.
1492 Spanish forces conquered the the last Muslim kingdom on the Iberian peninsula (Granada)
1492/08/03 Columbus led three ships from Cadiz
1492/10/12 Columbus' expedition first sighted land in the Bahamas
1493/03/15 Columbus returned to Spain as a hero
1493/10 Columbus began his second voyage with 17 ships and 1500 colonists. He founded a colony La Isabela on the island of Hispaniola and placed his
brothers Diego and Bartolem‚ in charge as co-governors
1494 After direct negotiations between Portugal's King John II and Spain's Ferdinand, the pope finally set the boundary between the Spanish and
Portuguese discoveries in such a way that Portugal retained the rights to Brazil, as well as Africa and India (Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494)
1496 Following complaints by the colonists, Columbus ignored a royal order to return to Spain for investigation, and went on a slaving expedition
instead. Although he eventually found gold in southern Hispaniola, his delay angered the royal family, and Columbus returned to Spain in partial disgrace in 1496.
1498 Columbus left on his third voyage, but since there were no more volunteers, his crew consisted of freed prisoners and other unwilling seamen. On this voyage, Columbus finally reached the American mainland at Venezuela.
1499 Conditions on at the colony on Hispaniola worsened and the king appointed Nicol s de Ovando as the new governor.
1500 The new governor arrested all three Columbus brothers and sent them back to Spain in chains.
1502 Columbus attempted to redeem himself with his fourth and final voyage. Since the Spanish King no longer provided any assistance, Columbus
sailed with only four ships. He was forbidden to land at the Spanish colony of Santa Domingo on Hispaniola.
1504 After Columbus' ships sank off the coast of Jamaica, the Spanish authorities rescued him and his crew, and returned them to Spain.
1506/05/20 Columbus died in Spain, disgraced.
1507 A new world map by Martin Waldseemller (1470?-1522?), named the land discovered by Colmbus after another explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, a
Florentine who sailed for both Portugal and Spain, visited the mouth of the Amazon River, and devised a means of measuring longitude.
1513 Vasco Nunez de Balboa, sailing for Spain, reached the Pacific Ocean in Panama in 1513.
1517 The Spanish king Charles V sold th right to trade slaves in the Spansih empire to Flemish merchants (from the area around the mouth of the Rhine river
1519-1522 Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese noble, led a Spanish expedition that sailed around the world. Although Magellan died in the Philippines, a spanish navigator, Sebast¡an del Cano, successfully returned to Spain in 1522 with one ship and fifteen sailors.
1521 Hern n Cortez and 400 men conquered the Aztec Empire (Mexico)
1529 Magellan's expedition led to open warfare between Portugal and Spain in the Asian spice islands, and ultimately to the Treaty of Zaragoza in 1529, which extended the line defined in the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) around the world.
1533 Francisco Pizarro took advantage of a succession crisis in the Inca Empire (Peru) to establish an inland military center at Lima.
