| A | B |
|---|
| Vikings | first Europeans to reach the Americas |
| Leif Eriksson | Viking explorer who sailed from Greenland to North America in 1000s |
| Martin Behaim | cartographer that made the first globe |
| Marco Polo | Explorer who spent many years in Asia, his book gave Europeans information about Asia. |
| Prince Henry | Henry the Navigator, prince of Portugal, who set up the first European schoool for training sailors in navigation |
| Bartholomeu Dias | in 1488 became the first to sail around the southern tip of Africa |
| Vasco da Gama | sailed around the southern tip of Africa and on to Asia in 1497 - 1498 |
| Christopher Columbus | in 1492 he sailed west from Spain and thought he had reached Asia, but had actually reached islands near the Americas, lands that were unknown to Europeans |
| Amerigo Vespucci | explorer who made several voyages from Europe to what many people thought was Asia. He determined that he had landed on another continent, which was later named America in his honor |
| Cladius Ptolemy | ancient astronomer and cartographer |
| Vasco Nunez de Balboa | became first European to reach the western coast of the Americas |
| Ferdinand Magellan | led a fleet of ships from Spain westward to Asia, he died on the voyage, but one of his ships made it back to Spain completing the first trip around the world |
| Motecuhzoma | Aztec king |
| Hernando Cortes | conquistador who conquered the Aztec Empire |
| Francisco Pizarro | conquistador who conquered the Incan empire |
| Atahuallpa | emperor of the Incas |
| Juan Ponce de Leon | Spanish explorer who landed on the North American mainland, what is today Florida, in search of the Fountain of Youth |
| Francisco Vasquez de Coronado | led an expedition from Mexico City into what is now the southwestern US in search of the Seven Cities of Gold |
| Hernando de Soto | led an expedition into what is today the southeastern US |
