Click on the Names of the Explorers to Learn More.
Christopher COlumbus
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An Italian explorer, navigator, colonizer and citizen of the Republic of Genoa. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. Those voyages, and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola, initiated the Spanish colonization of the New World.
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Jacques Cartier
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A French explorer of Breton origin who claimed what is now Canada for France. Jacques Cartier was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas."
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Vasco Nunez de Balboa
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A Spanish explorer, governor, and conquistador. He is best known for having crossed the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513, becoming the first European to lead an expedition to have seen or reached the Pacific from the New World.
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John Cabot
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An Italian navigator and explorer whose 1497 discovery of parts of North America under the commission of Henry VII of England is commonly held to have been the first European exploration of the mainland of North America since the Norse Vikings' visits to Vinland in the eleventh century. To mark the Canadian celebration of the 500th anniversary of Cabot's expedition, the Canadian and British governments have both accepted a widely held conclusion that the landing site was at Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland.
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