| A | B |
|---|
| Explorer | a person who explores an unfamiliar area; an adventurer |
| Henry the Navigator | a Portuguese Prince who founded a school of navigation and paid for many explorers to chart unknown lands and try to find sea routes to Asia |
| Spanish Armada | the name of the Spanish Navy in the 1500s, also called the Invisible Armada; contained 130 ships |
| Treaty of Tordesilla | divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Portuguese Empire and the Spanish Empire; approved by the Pope |
| Conquistador | a conqueror, especially one of the Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru in the 16th century |
| Incas | the large Native Empire that controlled most of what is now Peru |
| Aztecs | the large Native Empire that controlled most of what is now Mexico |
| Ferdinand Magellan | hired by Spain; the first to circumnavigate the globe |
| John Cabot | hired by the English explore the New World; believed to be the first European to set foot on North American soil since the Vikings |
| James Cook | the British explorer who charted New Zealand and the Great Barrier Reef of Australia |
| Pedro Álvares Cabral | a Portuguese explorer who is thought to be the first European to arrive in Brazil |
| Ponce de Leon | a Spanish explorer who focused on Florida; he spent time searching for the Fountain of Youth |
| Privateers | a non-military person or personal ship that engages in warfare on behalf of a nation; a "legal" or approved pirate |
| Circumnavigate | to voyage around the entire Earth |
| Caravels | a small, fast Spanish or Portuguese sailing ship of the 15th–17th centuries distinguished by triangle sails |
| New World | North and South America as well as the surrounding islands (in the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, etc.) |
| Old World | Europe, Asia, and Africa |
| Francis Drake | an English sea captain, privateer, slave trader, pirate, naval officer and explorer of the Elizabethan era |
| Jacques Cartier | the French explorer who sailed down the St. Lawrence River and claimed parts of North America for France |
| Amerigo Vespucci | the Italian explorer who said the then revolutionary concept that the lands that Christopher Columbus sailed to in 1492 were part of a separate continent |
| Bartolemeu Dias | hired by Portugal to find a sea route to India; he made it to the Cape of Good Hope (the southernmost part of Africa) |
| Vasco da Gama | hired by Portugal to find a sea route to India; he made it to India by going around Africa |
| Queen Isabella | the Queen of Spain who hired Christopher Columbus |
| Columbian Exchange | Exchange of goods, ideas and diseases between the Old World and the New World |
| Encomienda | using Native Americans as laborers |
| Middle Passage | the journey from Africa to the Americas for slaves called |
| Triangle Trade | the system of trade that existed between Asia, Africa, and the New World |
