Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) was a navigator and explorer whose famous 1492 voyage from Spain to the West Indies marked the beginning of successful European colonization of the Americas. ...

Francisco Pizarro (1475–1541) was one of the most successful Spanish conquistadors. In 1532, Pizarro led a small force of Spanish soldiers and conquered the mighty Inca Empire. He then founded th...

Hernán Cortés (1485–1547) was perhaps the most famous of the Spanish conquistadors, the conqueror of the mighty Aztec Empire of Central America. From 1519 to 1521, Cortés commanded the sm...

Hernando de Soto (1496–1542) was a Spanish conquistador who led a disastrous expedition of conquest into the North American interior between 1539 and 1542. De Soto, who hoped to follow in th...

René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (1643–1687) was a French explorer and colonist who established French claims to lands around the Great Lakes region and in the Mississippi Valley. In 1682...

John Winthrop (1587–1649) was a devoutly religious Puritan elder who led a large migration of Puritans from England to America in 1629 and became the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony on...