| A | B |
|---|
| Marco Polo | Italian adventurer who traveled to China and came back with stories that stimulated European desires for a cheaper route to the treasures of the East. |
| Francisco Pizzaro | Spaniard who crushed the Incas of Peru in 1532. |
| Juan Ponce De Leon | Spaniard who eplored Florida, at first thinking it was an island. |
| Hernando de Soto | With six hundred armed men, this Spaniard went looking for gold from 1539-1542. He discovered and crossed the majestic Mississippi River just north of its junction with the Arkansas River. |
| Montezuma | The Aztec chieftain who let Cortes approach because he thought he was the god Quetzalcoatl. |
| Christopher Columbus | The Italian who went in search of a Western route tot eh Indies, who ran across the Bahamas instead in 1492. |
| Hernan Cortes | With the rescued castaway and the Indian slave Malinche, this explorer had the necessary interpreters. He traveled to Tenochtitlan and attacked the Aztecs. When the Aztecs finally attacked him, he laid siege on the city, which capitulated on August 13, 1521. |
| Francisco Coronado | Spaniard who went searching for fabled golden cities that turned out to be adobe pueblos, wandering through Arizona and New Mexico and getting as far east as Kansas. He discovered the Grand Canyon of the Colorado river and the enormous herds of buffalo. |
| Renaissance | The "rebirth" which nurtured an ambitious spirit of optimism and adventure. |
| Age of Discovery | The period when Europe was exploring the New World, as well as Africa and Asia. |
| mestizos | People of mixed Indian and European heritage. |
| Treaty of Todesillas | Spain secured its claim to Columbus' discovery in this treaty, which divided with Portugal the "heathen lands" of the New World. |
| Canadian Shield | A zone undergirded by ancient rock in the northeastern corner of North America; it was probably the first part of what became N. America to have emerged above sea leverl. |
| conquistadores | Spanish men in search of gold and glory who began exploring and colonizing the American continents. |
| Aztecs | "Indian" inhabitant who had a huge empire and many riches, but were crushed by Cortes and his troops. |
| Pope's Rebellion | In 1680, the Pueblo rebels in New Mexico destroyed every Catholic church in the province, killing many priests and Spanish settlers. |
| Pueblo Indians | The Indians who lived in New Mexico until Don Juan de Onate came and abused them, even severing one foot of every survivor of one of the battles. They rose up in 1680 in the Pope's Rebellion. |
