Exploration & Expansion in the 16th century

328 sourced entries, 1500 CE to 1599 CE, oldest first. Also see Exploration & Expansion across every century or everything else in the 16th century.

• 1500January 26 – Spanish navigator Vicente Yáñez Pinzón reaches the northern coast of Brazil.source
• 1500March 9 – Pedro Álvares Cabral, with a fleet of 13 ships, departs Portugal on a voyage to the New World.source
• 1500April 22 – Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral and his crew on 13 vessels arrive in Brazil, anchoring at Monte Pascoal and naming the country Vera Cruz. Cabral claims the land for the Kingdom of Portugal.source
• 1500May 1 – Pero Vaz de Caminha finishes writing his chronicle of the Portuguese discovery of Brazil while accompanying Cabral.source
• 1500May 3 – Cabral and his fleet depart from Brazil and sail eastward toward Africa, resuming their journey to India.source
• 1500May 29 – Traveling eastward from Brazil, Cabral and his fleet run into a storm off of the coast of Africa near the Cape of Good Hope and lose four of their 13 ships. Navigator Bartolomeu Dias is among the persons killed.source
• 1500August 10 – Diogo Dias discovers an island which he names São Lourenço, since August 10 is the feast day of Saint Lawrence, a Roman Catholic martyr of the 3rd century. The massive island is later known as Madagascar.source
• 1500September 13 – Pedro Cabral's fleet of nine ships arrives in India, more than six months after departing from Portugal, and lands at the port of Calicut, which had been visited two years earlier by Vasco da Gama.source
• 1500November 25 – Christopher Columbus and his brothers arrive in Spain at Seville "after one of the longest Atlantic crossings in the Columbian years" (six weeks) and released on their own recognizance.source
• 1500A group of Māori migrate east from the New Zealand mainland to the Chatham Islands, developing a distinct pacificist culture known as the Moriori (approx. date).source
• 1501March 25 – Portuguese navigator João da Nova discovers Ascension Island. It is definitely sighted and named on May 20, 1503 (Feast of the Ascension) by Afonso de Albuquerque.source
• 1501June 23 – Nicolau Coelho, part of Pedro Cabral's Portuguese expedition to India, returns home with one ship, having left ahead of Cabral.source
• 1501July 21 – Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral and his surviving crew return to Lisbon at the end of a 15-month expedition to India, with only seven of their original fleet of 13 ships. The cargo from India, however, returns a profit to the Portuguese crown of nine times its investment.source
• 1501November 1 (All Saints) – Amerigo Vespucci discovers and names Baía de Todos os Santos, in Brazil.source
• 1501November 4 – Philip and Joanna of Castile leave for Spain.source
• 1501Rodrigo de Bastidas, sailing westward from Venezuela in search of gold, becomes the first European to explore the Isthmus of Panama.source
• 1501Gaspar Corte-Real, Portuguese navigator, makes the first documented European landing in North America since c. 1000 A.D.source
• 1501Amerigo Vespucci maps the two stars Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri, as well as the stars of the constellation Crux, which are below the horizon in Europe.source
• 1502January 1 – Portuguese explorers, led by Gonçalo Coelho, sail into Guanabara Bay, Brazil, mistaking it for the mouth of a river, which they name Rio de Janeiro.source
• 1502March 14 – Christopher Columbus begins preparation for his fourth and final voyage, with a goal of finding a westward passage in the New World to link the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean.source
• 1502May 3 – Portuguese navigator João da Nova discovers the uninhabited island of Saint Helena.source
• 1502May 9 – Christopher Columbus leaves Cadiz in Spain for his fourth and final trip to the New World, taking with him 147 men on his flagship, Capitana and the companion ships Gallega, Vizcaína, and Santiago de Palos. He explores Central America, and discovers the Isthmus of Panama and the land now occupied by Honduras, and Costa Rica, and possibly the island of St. Lucia as wellsource
• 1502May 26 – Columbus and his men complete the rescue of stranded Portuguese soldiers in Morocco, then depart Asilah for a crossing of the Atlantic in 20 days.source
• 1502June 15 – Columbus and his crew land on the island of Martinique and land at Le Carbet.source
• 1502July 30 – The first encounter between Europeans and the Maya people of Central America takes place when the Columbus brothers anchor at Guanaja, one of the Bay Islands off of the coast of what is now the nation of Honduras. An unfortunate group of Mayan traders happens to arrive at Guanaja at the same time, and its cargo is looted by Bartolomeo Columbus and his crew.source
• 1502August 14 – Christopher Columbus and his crew land at Puerto Castilla in what is now the mainland of the nation of Honduras, becoming the first Europeans to visit.source
• 1502September 18 – Christopher Columbus lands at Central America at what is now Costa Rica.source
• 1502October 16 – Columbus and his crew arrive at Almirante Bay in Panama.source
• 1502Bristol merchants return from Newfoundland (first so named this year from a letter) to England, carrying three native people and cod from the Grand Banks.source
• 1502The first African slaves brought to the New World arrive at the island of Hispaniola (modern-day Haiti and Dominican Republic).source
• 1503January 20 – Seville in Castile is awarded exclusive rights to trade with the New World.source
• 1503March 15 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama and sailors of his Portuguese India Armada become the first Europeans to sight the Seychelles islands as Thomé Lopes notes the discovery of what will later be called Silhouette Island.source
• 1503May 10 – Christopher Columbus discovers the Cayman Islands, which he names Las Tortugas, after the numerous sea turtles there.source
• 1503May 20 (Feast of the Ascension) – Ascension Island is first definitively sighted, by Portuguese admiral Afonso de Albuquerque.source
• 1503June 25 – After his ships are damaged in a storm, Christopher Columbus and his 230 men are forced to beach at the island of Jamaica (at modern-day Saint Ann Parish) and remain stranded there for the next six months.source
• 1503July 30 – Saint Helena is first definitively sighted, by ships of Portuguese navigator Estêvão da Gama returning from the East.source
• 1503The Spanish explorer Juan de Bermúdez discovered the island Bermuda.source
• 1504February 14 – King Ferdinand V of Castile contracts with Juan de la Cosa to finance an independent expedition to the Pearl Islands and the Gulf of Urabá.source
• 1504June 28 – After being marooned in Jamaica for six months, Christopher Columbus and his men are rescued by a Spanish ship.source
• 1504November 7 – Christopher Columbus returns to Spain from his fourth voyage, during which he and his younger son, Ferdinand, explored the coast of Central America from Belize to Panama.source
• 1505March 25 – Appointed as the Viceroy of Portuguese India by King Manuel I of Portugal, Dom Francisco de Almeida departs from Portugal with an armada of 22 ships and 1,500 men, according to one estimate by João de Barros.source
• 1505April 3 – Italian explorer Sebastiano Caboto is granted a lifetime annuity of £10 per year by England's King Henry VII for services "in and aboute the fyndynge of the new founde landes" in North America.source
• 1505July 24 – Travelling to India, a group of Portuguese explorers led by Francisco de Almeida, with 22 ships and 1,500 men, sack the city-state of Kilwa in East Africa, killing the Emir Abraham for failing to pay tribute. Almeida installs Mohammed Ankoni as the new ruler.source
• 1505September 13 – Francisco de Almeida arrives in the Anjediva Islands to begin construction on the first of four fortresses he needed to construct for his appointment as viceroy.source
• 1505November 15 – Portuguese explorer Lourenço de Almeida and his fleet encounter a storm and are driven to the island of Sri Lanka and travels to Colombo. The King of Kotte, Dharma Parakramabahu IX, allows Almeida to build a trade station and a Roman Catholic chapel.source
• 1505Portuguese merchants establish factories and fortresses on the east coast of Africa in Kilwa, Sofala, and Malindi.source
• 1505Bermuda is discovered by Spanish explorer Juan de Bermúdez.source
• 1505Portuguese explorer Gonçalo Álvares is the first to sight what will later be known as Gough Island in the South Atlantic.source
• 1506The Portuguese mariner Tristão da Cunha sights the islands of Tristan da Cunha, naming them after himself.source
• 1507February 9 – The crew of the Portuguese ship Cirne, commanded by Diogo Fernandes Pereira, become the first Europeans to sight the Indian ocean island of Réunion, and name it Santa Apolonia.source
• 1507August 10 – Afonso de Albuquerque departs with six ships from the Yemeni island of Socotra to begin pillaging towns along the way to conquering the Persian Gulf port of Hormuz.source
• 1507September 26 – A fleet commanded by Portugal's Afonso de Albuquerque arrives at the port of Hormuz on the Persian Gulf and sets about to conquer it.source
• 1507October 10 – The Kingdom of Portugal conquers the island of Ormuz in the Persian Gulf.source
• 1507The Portuguese found the town of Stone Town in Mozambique.source
• 1508March 22 – Ferdinand II of Aragon appoints Florentine merchant Amerigo Vespucci to the post of Chief Navigator of Spain.source
• 1508August 12 – The Spanish settlement of Puerto Rico begins when Juan Ponce de León lands on the island. Upon his arrival, Ponce is welcomed by Agüeybaná I, the island's leader a Cacique of the Taíno people. The Spanish explorer soon settles and founds the city of Caparra, near what is now the town of Guaynabo.source
• 1509January 21 – The Portuguese first arrive at the Seven Islands of Bombay and land at Mahim after capturing a barge of the Gujarat Sultanate in the Mahim Creek.source
• 1509May 9 – The Venetians, encamped around the town of Treviglio, move south towards the Po River in search of better positions.source
• 1509September 11 – Portuguese fidalgo Diogo Lopes de Sequeira becomes the first European to reach Malacca, having crossed the Gulf of Bengal.source
• 1510Sunflowers are brought to Europe by Spaniards.source
• 1511June 21 – in Spain, Queen Queen Joanna of Castile creates the Consulate of the Sea for the port of Bilbao.source
• 1511Juan de Agramonte, a sailor from Spain, is thought possibly to have travelled to Newfoundland.source
• 1512May 12 – Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, leads an English expedition into France and burns the port city of Brest.source
• 1512Juan Ponce de León discovers the Turks and Caicos Islands.source
• 1512António de Abreu discovers Timor Island, and reaches the Banda Islands, Ambon Island and Seram.source
• 1512Francisco Serrão reaches the Moluccas.source
• 1512Francisco Serrao and other shipwreck sailors with permission from the Ternate Sultanate build Fort Tolukko. It is one of the earliest, if not the first European style fortress in southeast Asia.source
• 1512Pedro Mascarenhas discovers Diego Garcia, and reaches Mauritius in the Mascarene Islands.source
• 1513March 27 – Juan Ponce de León becomes the first European definitely known to sight Florida, mistaking it for another island.source
• 1513April 2 – Juan Ponce de León and his expedition become the first Europeans known to visit Florida, landing somewhere on the east coast. One of the expedition, Juan Garrido, becomes the first African known to visit North America.source
• 1513May – Portuguese explorer Jorge Álvares and his crew land on Lintin Island, in the Pearl River estuary, near Guangzhou, becoming the first Europeans to arrive in China by sea.source
• 1513July 25 – Scotland's Earl of Arran departs from the Firth of Forth with 22 ships on a plan to join France in cutting off England's communications with the rest of Europe.source
• 1513September 25 – Vasco Núñez de Balboa first sees what will become known as the Pacific Ocean from the Isthimus of Darién. This moment is later referenced in a poem by John Keats called "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" with the line "silent upon a peak in Darién" although he mistakenly references Hernán Cortés as the one who saw the Pacific from Darién.source
• 1514December 4 – Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca and Pietro Martire d'Anghiera complete the first printed map of Central America as they record their data from the Pinzón–Solís voyage of 1508-1509.source
• 1515April 1 – The Portuguese Navy, led by Afonso de Albuquerque, conquers the strategic Hormuz Island as King Turan Shah and his prime minister, Rais Nureddin invited Albuquerque to land his forces and formally take possession of Hormuz.source
• 1515August 25 – Conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founds Havana, Cuba.source
• 1515October 8 – Portuguese explorer Juan Díaz de Solís departs from Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain with three ships and 70 men on a disastrous expedition toward the southern part of the continent of South America. Soon after landing at what is now Uruguay, Díaz and most of his crew are killed by the Charrúa people shortly after their arrival in January.source
• 1515Henry Cornelius Agrippa returns to Northern Italy.source
• 1515The Ottomans conquer the last beyliks of Anatolia, the Beylik of Dulkadir and the Ramadanid Emirate.source
• 1515The Portuguese are the first Europeans to land in Timor island, as the first settlers arrive to the north coast of Madeira Island, there establishing Saint George.source
• 1516January 20 – Juan Díaz de Solís arrives in what is now Punta del Este in Uruguay, where he becomes the first European to sail into the Río de la Plata (in future Argentina). Díaz and nine of his men are attacked and killed by the local Charrúa people shortly after their arrival. although there was likely an expedition earlier in 1511-1512 by João de Lisboa and Estevão de Fróis.source
• 1516September 17 – Based in Kamaran, an island in the Red Sea, the Mamluk Egyptian Admiral Selman Reis leads of fleet 19 ships in an unsuccessful attempt to take Yemen and Aden.source
• 1516Italian explorer Rafael Perestrello, a cousin of the wife of Christopher Columbus, commands an expedition from Portuguese Malacca to land on the shores of mainland southern China, and trade with Chinese merchants at Guangzhou, during the Ming Dynasty.source
• 1516Portuguese soldier Fernão Lopes becomes the first known permanent inhabitant of Saint Helena.source
• 1517February 8 – Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a chronicler who documents the conquest of Mexico, sets out with the Hernández de Córdoba expedition from Jaruco. They arrive at Cape Catoche twenty-one days later, and are met with hostility by the natives. Henry's 25-year-old sister Anne of Navarre serves as the regent until 1518, when Henry reaches the age of majority.source
• 1517March 4 – The first intentional landing by Europeans on the coast of Mexico takes place as the Cordoba Expedition arrives at Cabo Catoche on the Yucatán Peninsula, now in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The Spaniards are attacked by the Mayans after being invited to visit, and a battle breaks out with 13 Spaniards ambushed and 15 Mayans killed.source
• 1517June 17 – A fleet of eight ships of the navy of Portugal, commanded by Fernão Pires de Andrade and dispatched from Goa by Portuguese India's Governor Lopo Soares de Albergaria on orders of King Manuel I, arrives in China at Canton (now Guangzhou) and brings the Ambassador Tomé Pires and his diplomatic corps to start trade and foreign relations.source
• 1517August 15 – Portuguese merchant Fernão Pires de Andrade meets Ming Dynasty Chinese officials through an interpreter, at the Pearl River estuary and lands, at what is now in the jurisdiction of Hong Kong. Although the first European trade expeditions to China took place in 1513 and 1516 by Jorge Álvares and Rafael Perestrello, respectively, Andrade's mission is the first official diplomatic mission of a European power to China, commissioned by a ruler of Europe (Manuel I of Portugal).source
• 1518March 22 – King Charles of Spain gives his approval for the Magellan expedition, initially for the purpose of finding a westward route from Spain to the "Spice Islands" (now the Maluku Islands in Indonesia), to avoid the more frequently-used eastward route around Africa. Veteran seaman Ferdinand Magellan and navigator Rui Faleiro, both of Portugal, had turned to Spain to fund the expedition after being refused by King Manuel of Portugal. The voyage proves to be further than expected and becomes the first to sail around the world.source
• 1518April 8 – Spanish conquistador Juan de Grijalva embarks from Cuba on a mission to explore and conquer Mexico, departing from Matanzas with four ships and 170 people.source
• 1518May 3 – Grijalva and his crew become the first Europeans to find Cozumel in Mexico.source
• 1518May 9 – A fleet of four Portuguese ships, commanded by João da Silveira from Portuguese India, arrived in Chittagong (now part of Bangladesh, but at the time part of the Sultanate of Bengal), reputed to be the wealthiest region in the Indian subcontinent.source
• 1518June 8 – The Girjalva expedition brings the first Europeans to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, arriving at what is now the Tabasco state.source
• 1518August 28 – King Charles of Spain issues a charter authorizing the transportation of slaves directly from Africa to the Spanish Americas. His decision changes the nature and scale of the transatlantic slave trade.source
• 1518November 13 – Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, the Spanish Colonial Governor of Cuba, is granted the office of Captain General of Yucatán, which comprises southern Mexico. Velázquez is also granted the exclusive right to conquer and colonize the new Yucatan Province, but turns the rights over to Francisco de Montejo in 1526.source
• 1519February 10 – The Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his conquistadores depart from Cuba toward the island of Cozumel in Mexico to begin a mission of conquest.source
• 1519April 21 (Maundy Thursday) – Hernán Cortés reaches San Juan de Ulúa, and sets foot the next day (Good Friday) on the beach of modern-day Veracruz.source
• 1519July 26 – King Charles of Spain issues a royal order prohibiting navigator Rui Faleiro from participating in the Magellan expedition, after Portugal's ambassador to Spain reports that Faleiro is suffering from a nervous breakdown.source
• 1519August 10 – The Magellan expedition departs from Seville in Spain.source
• 1519September 20 – Ferdinand Magellan departs from Spain with a fleet of five ships and a crew of 270 men, to sail westbound to the Spice Islands.source
• 1519December 6 – The Magellan expedition reaches the South American coast.source
• 1519Spanish conquistador and founder of Panama City, Gaspar de Espinosa, sails up the Pacific coast from Panama to Nicaragua, landing at the Gulf of Nicoya.source
• 1519Havana moves from the southern to the northern part of Cuba.source
• 1520March 31 – The Magellan expedition, led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão de Magalhães), pauses in its attempt to sail around the world, stopping at Puerto San Julian on the lower east coast of what is now Patagonia in Argentina. His fleet consists of Magellan's flagship, Trinidad, and four other vessels, Concepción, Victoria, San Antonio and Santiago.source
• 1520May 22 – The Magellan expedition loses its first ship as the caravel Santiago is wrecked in a storm while sailing inland on Argentina's Santa Cruz Riversource
• 1520August 21 – After wintering in Patagonia in Argentina, the Magellan expedition resumes its attempt to become the first crew to sail around the world.source
• 1520October 21 (Feast of St. Ursula) – The islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon are discovered by Portuguese explorer João Álvares Fagundes, off Newfoundland. He names them Islands of the 11,000 Virgins, in honour of Saint Ursula.source
• 1520October 21 – The four remaining ships of the Magellan expedition and their crews confirm that they have found the passage that will be named the Strait of Magellan, the passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The crew of the San Antonio, led by Estêvão Gomes elects not to sail into strait and begins journeying back to Spain.source
• 1520November 28 – After navigating through the strait at the southern end of South America, three ships under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan reach the Pacific Ocean. Magellan thankful to find a peaceful sea after the dangerous trip through the strait, names the body of water "El Mar Pacifico" because of its pacifying waters. becoming the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific (the strait is later named the Strait of Magellan).source
• 1521March 6 – Ferdinand Magellan makes the first European contact with Guam, most likely landing in Tumon.source
• 1521April 7 – Ferdinand Magellan arrives at Cebu.source
• 1522January 26 – Spanish conquistador Gil González Dávila sets out from the gulf of Panama to explore the Pacific coast of Central America. He explores Nicaragua and names Costa Rica when he finds copious quantities of gold in Pacific beaches.source
• 1522September 6 – A group of 18 men, commanded by Captain Juan Sebastián Elcano, and including Antonio Pigafetta, Maestre Anes and Juan de Zubileta become the first people to have traveled around the world. Arriving on the ship Victoria, they had set off as part of 270 sailors on five ships on the Magellan expedition almost three years earlier. They return to the Spanish port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, from where they had departed on September 20, 1519.source
• 1522Australia is sighted by a Portuguese expedition led by Cristóvão de Mendonça, who maps the continent and names it Jave la Grande ("The Greater Java"), according to the theory of the Portuguese discovery of Australia.source
• 1523April 12 – The Spanish conquest of Nicaragua continues as Gil González Dávila and 17 other soldiers arrive at Lake Nicaragua and claim it for the Spanish crown, calling the freshwater source the Mar Dulce. Gonzalez and 100 men with him have been welcomed by Macuilmiquiztli Nicarao, leader of the friendly Nicarao people, to explore the area.source
• 1523June 3 – Santhome Church is established by Portuguese explorers over the tomb of Saint Thomas the Apostle at Madras (now Chennai) in India.source
• 1523June 23 – The Spanish expedition into Nicaragua ends as the Europeans arrive back in Panama in canoes, having been forced to abandon their ships.source
• 1523September 22 – Spanish conquest of Nicaragua: An agreement is made for an expedition by conquistadores into Nicaragua organized by Pedrarias Dávila.source
• 1523October 27 – Hürrem Pasha, the Ottoman Empire's Governor-General of the Damascus Eyalet (which includes parts of what will become Syria, Israel, Jordan and Palestine) begins a punitive expedition through Lebanon against the Druze of Chouf. During the first campaign, Hürrem's troops burn 43 villages and kill at least 400 Druze.source
• 1524January 17 – Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, on board La Dauphine in the service of Francis I of France, sets out from Madeira for the New World, to seek out a western sea route to the Pacific Ocean.source
• 1524March 21 – da Verrazzano's expedition makes landfall at Cape Fear at what is later the U.S. state of North Carolina.source
• 1524April 17 – Verrazzano's expedition makes the first European entry into New York Bay, and sights the island of Manhattan.source
• 1524July 8 – Verrazzano's expedition returns to Dieppe.source
• 1524September 13 – Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, Hernando de Luque and Diego de Almagro all set off on the first of three expeditions to conquer Peru, taking along 80 men and 40 horses, but the venture is halted in Colombia.source
• 1524December 8 – Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba founds the city of Granada, Nicaragua, the oldest Hispanic city in the mainland America.source
• 1525December – The first French ambassador to reach the Sublime Porte, Jean Frangipani, sets out for Constantinople.source
• 1525Kasur established as a city by the Kheshgi tribe of Pashtuns from Kabul who migrate to the region in 1525 from Afghanistan.source
• 1525The Chinese Ministry of War under the Ming dynasty orders ships having more than one mast sailing along the southeast coast to be seized, investigated, and destroyed; this in an effort to curb piracy and limit private commercial trade abroad.source
• 1526July 25 – The Spanish ship Santiago, from García Jofre de Loaísa's expedition, reaches the Pacific Coast of Mexico and drops anchor at the Gulf of Tehuantepec, becoming the first ship to sail from Europe to the west coast of North America.source
• 1526August 9 – Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón of Spain founded the failed colony, San Miguel de Gualdape in present-day Winyah Bay, Georgetown County, South Carolina. It was the first European settlement, as well as the first documented occurrence of enslavement of African peoples in what would later become the continental United States.source
• 1526August 21 – Spanish explorer Alonso de Salazar becomes the first European to sight the Marshall Islands, in the Pacific Ocean.source
• 1526Spanish conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro and his brothers first reach Inca territory in South America.source
• 1527June 17 – The Narváez expedition to conquer Florida sets sail from Spain.source
• 1527October 31 – Spanish conquistador Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón departs from Zihuatanejo in what is now Mexico on a voyage of exploration of the Pacific Ocean, along with three ships, Saavedra's flagship La Florida, and the vessels Espiritu Santo and Santiago.source
• 1527December 15 – Two of the three ships of Álvaro de Saavedra are separated from his own vessel, La Florida, during a storm. The Espiritu Santo and Santiago, sailing ahead of La Florida, are never heard from again.source
• 1528October 3 – Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón arrives in the Maluku Islands.source
• 1528November 6 – Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his companions become the first known Europeans to set foot on the shores of what is present-day Texas, when they and 80 survivors are wrecked on Galveston Island following a storm. Only 15 live beyond winter, and they are eventually enslaved by various Indian tribes. Eventually, only four of the 81 Spanish survivors— Cabeza de Vaca, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, and an African slave of Dorantes, Estevanico— are able to escape and return home.source
• 1528Diego García de Moguer explores the Sierra de la Plata along the Río de la Plata, and begins to travel up the Paraná River.source
• 1530January 20 – Sent on a mission to penetrate the interior of Mexico and to conquer the Kingdom of Michoacán, the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés leads a group of soldiers across the Lerma river through Cuitzeo and proceeds northwest. They arrive at Tonalá on March 24 and then take possession of the regions south of the Santiago River and north and west of Lake Chapala.source
• 1530July 30 – At Neue Augsburg (now Coro in the nation of Venezuela), German explorer Nikolaus Federmann becomes the acting governor of Klein-Venedig ("Little Venice") Germany's short-lived South American colony as Governor Ambrosius Ehinger takes a leave of absence to recover from malaria.source
• 1530December – Martim Afonso de Sousa's expedition sets out for Brazil from Portugal.source
• 1531December 9 – The Virgin of Guadalupe first appears to Juan Diego at Tepeyac, Mexico City.source
• 1531In present-day Czech Republic, the Zástřizl family held Bohdalice and Pavlovice from 1413 until 1531.source
• 1532January 22 – São Vicente is established as the first permanent Portuguese settlement in Brazil.source
• 1532May 13 – Francisco Pizarro lands on the northern coast of Peru.source
• 1533December 21 (Feast of St Thomas the Apostle) – Hernando de Grijalva and his crew become the first persons discover the uninhabited Revillagigedo Islands, off the Pacific coast of Mexico, reporting the finding of what Grijalva names Isla Santo Tomé, probably Socorro Island.source
• 1533December 28 – Grijalva and his crew discover Isla de los Inocentes, probably San Benedicto Island.source
• 1534May 10 – Jacques Cartier explores Newfoundland, while searching for the Northwest Passage.source
• 1534June 9 – Jacques Cartier and his crew become the first Europeans to discover the Gulf of St Lawrence.source
• 1534June 29 – Jacques Cartier discovers Prince Edward Island.source
• 1534July 7 – The first known exchange between Europeans and the natives of the Gulf of St. Lawrence occurs in what is now New Brunswick.source
• 1534December 6 – Over 200 Spanish settlers, led by conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar, found what becomes Quito, Ecuador.source
• 1535March 10 – Fray Tomás de Berlanga discovers the Galápagos Islands, when blown off course en route to Peru.source
• 1535April 11 – The visiting Ottoman envoys to France depart from Marseille, six months after having arrived from Istanbul in October. Jean de La Forêt, the new French ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, accompanies the Ottoman fleet with his party on a French galley, and the group sails to Tunis.source
• 1535May 19 – French explorer Jacques Cartier sets sail for his second voyage to North America with three ships, 110 men, and Chief Donnacona's two sons (taken by Cartier during his first voyage).source
• 1535July 3 – Diego de Almagro leaves the recently conquered Inca capital of Cuzco to lead an expedition to Chile.source
• 1535September 13 – Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, becomes the first person to pass through the new Porta Nuova in Palermo, celebrating the European conquest of the North African territory of Tunis.source
• 1535October 2 – Jacques Cartier reaches the island in the Saint Lawrence River, that eventually becomes Montreal.source
• 1536February 2 – Spanish conquistador Pedro de Mendoza founds Buenos Aires in what is now Argentina.source
• 1536June 26 – Spanish navigator Andrés de Urdaneta and a few companions arrive in Lisbon from the Maluku Islands, completing a westward circumnavigation which began with the Loaísa expedition of 1525.source
• 1536Luis Sarmento is the Imperial ambassador to Portugal.source
• 1537March 8 – Chipatá, now in the Santander Department of the Republic of Colombia, is founded by the Spanish conquistadors Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada and his brother Hernán Pérez de Quesada as the first settlement in what will become the Spanish colony of Nueva Granada, which will later be divided into the nations of Colombia and Venezuela.source
• 1537Spanish counquistadors in what are now Peru and Colombia become the first Europeans to discover the potato, one of the staple foods for the indigenous residents, while exploring the houses of who have fled from their homes. Pedro Cieza de León, part of the expedition to Colombia, mentions the potato in a book that he publishes 16 years later while Don Juan Castellanos refers to the edible plant as part of a military report on raiding an Inca village in Peru. The potato is introduced to Europe more than 30 years later, in 1570.source
• 1537Kiritimati (Acea or "Christmas Island") is probably sighted by the Spanish mutineers from Hernando de Grijalva's expedition.source
• 1538March 18 – Garcia de Noronha is appointed as the new Governor-General of Portuguese India by King João III. He sails to Goa and arrives less than three weeks later.source
• 1539Teseo Ambrogio's Introductio in Chaldaicam lingua, Syriaca atq Armenica, & dece alias linguas, published in Pavia, introduces several Middle Eastern languages to western Europe for the first time.source
• 1540July 7 – Spanish conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado captures Hawikuh in modern-day New Mexico, at this time known as part of Cíbola, but fails to find the legendary gold.source
• 1540August 15 – In Peru, Spanish captain Garcí Manuel de Carbajal founds the Villa Hermosa de Arequipa; one year later, Charles V of Germany and I of Spain will give the valley a status of 'city' by royal decree.source
• 1540October 18 – An expedition led by Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto destroys the fortified village of Mabila in modern-day Alabama, killing paramount chief Tuskaloosa.source
• 1540December 31 – Estêvão da Gama, Governor of Portuguese India, departs from Goa with a plan to sail into the Red Sea, and destroy the Ottoman Empire's access to the Indian Ocean by plundering Suez. The planned attack fails.source
• 1541April 7 – Francis Xavier leaves Lisbon, on a mission to the Portuguese East Indies.source
• 1541May 8 – Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi River, naming it the Rio de Espiritu Santo ("River of the Holy Spirit").source
• 1541May 23 – Jacques Cartier departs from Saint-Malo, France on his third voyage.source
• 1541Gerardus Mercator makes his first globe.source
• 1542January 6 – In the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico, the Spanish colonists create the new town of Mérida.source
• 1542January 23 – Tutul-Xiu, the Mayan ruler of the Maní in Yucatán, arrives at the Spanish settlement of Merida with food supplies for the colonists and offers to assist the Spaniards in their conquest of Yucatan in return for being installed as the leading Mayan ruler in Mexico.source
• 1542February 14 – Guadalajara, Mexico, is founded by the Spaniards after three previous attempts failed, due to aggressive opposition from local tribes.source
• 1542June 27 – Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo sets sail to explore the northwest of the Pacific Ocean.source
• 1542October 7 – Cabrillo becomes the first European to set foot on California's Santa Catalina Island.source
• 1543March 7 – Massive flooding of the Mississippi River and the Arkansas River begins in southeastern North America over a 40 day period while Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his team are passing through. The event is noted by the chronicler of the DeSoto Expedition, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.source
• 1544May 23 – The allied French and Ottoman navies depart from the French port of Marseille and travel to Constantinople, the Ottoman capital. The French fleet is commanded by Antoine Escalin des Aimars, known as Captain Polin, French ambassador to the Ottomans, while the Turks are led by Hayreddin Barbarossa.source
• 1544September 18 – The expedition of Juan Bautista Pastene makes landfall in San Pedro Bay, southern Chile, claiming the territory for Spain.source
• 1544September 22 – Captain Juan Bautista Pastene leads the first European expedition to the estuary of Valdivia, Chile and Corral Bay.source
• 1544Portuguese explorers encounter the island of Taiwan, and call it Ilha Formosa ("Beautiful Island").source
• 1544Rats make their first appearance in South America, arriving in Peru with the species black rat.source
• 1545April 1 – Potosí is founded by the Spanish as a mining town after the discovery of huge silver deposits in this area of modern-day Bolivia. Silver mined from Huayna Potosí Mountain provides most of the wealth on which the Spanish Empire is based until its fall in the early 19th century.source
• 1545June 13 – Spanish explorer Yñigo Ortiz de Retez sets out to navigate the northern coast of New Guinea.source
• 1545June 20 – Spanish explorer Yñigo Ortiz de Retez arrives at a large island in the South Pacific Ocean. Stopping at the Mamberamo River, Ortiz claims the island for Spain and christens it "Nueva Guinea" after concluding that the natives resemble the people on the coast of the Guinea coast of West Africa.source
• 1546November 10 – The European colonists defending the city of Diu in Portuguese India defeat the six-month siege that had been started by the Gujarat Sultanate on April 20. The Portuguese victory comes three days after the arrival of 3,000 troops and 38 ships.source
• 1547John Dee visits the Low Countries, to study navigation with Gemma Frisius.source
• 1547Huguenots increasingly immigrate to the English county of Kent, especially Canterbury, from France.source
• 1548April 15 – General Zhu Wan of Ming dynasty China dispatches a fleet of ships, commanded by Lu Tang, to destroy smugglers and pirates at Shangyu, a port on Liuheng Island. The fleet sets off from Wenzhou and makes its attack in June.source
• 1548August 7 – Mary, Queen of Scots, leaves for France.source
• 1549Although trade existed between the two beforehand, in this year the Portuguese begin to send regular seasonal maritime trade missions to Ming dynasty China, at Sao João Island (also known as Shangchuan Island) near Macau.source
• 1550January 6 – Spanish Captain Hernando de Santana founds the city of Valledupar, in modern-day Colombia.source
• 1551Portugal founds a sugar colony at Bahia.source
• 1552April 16 – Pedro de Valdivia founds the city of La Imperial, Chile.source
• 1553August 24 – English explorer Richard Chancellor enters the White Sea and reaches Arkhangelsk. He goes on afterwards to the court of Ivan the Terrible of Russia, opening up trade between England and Russia.source
• 1554November 1 – English captain John Lok, commanding three ships (the Trinitie, the Bartholomew and the John Evangelist), departs from Dartmouth in England to voyage to the Guinea Coast at West Africa.source
• 1554December 22 – The John Lok expedition reaches Guinea, anchoring at the Sesto River and remains for seven days to begin trading."source
• 1554Luso-Chinese agreement: Portugal reaches an agreement with the Ming Dynasty of China, to be allowed to legally trade in the province of Guangdong. This agreement is often seen as a starting point of the Portuguese colony of Macau.source
• 1555November 1 – French Navy Vice-Admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon leads a small fleet of two ships and 200 soldiers and colonists to take possession of Serigipe Island, near modern-day Rio de Janeiro in Brazil at Guanabara Bay, and builds Fort Coligny.source
• 1556Ivan the Terrible conquers Astrakhan, opening the Volga River to Russian traffic and trade.source
• 1557With the permission of the Ming dynasty government of China, and for the benefit of both Western and Eastern merchants, the Portuguese settle in Macau (retroceded in 1999). Direct Sino-Portuguese trade has existed since 1513, but this is the first official legal treaty port on traditional Chinese soil, that will form a long-term Western settlement.source
• 1557German adventurer Hans Staden publishes a widely translated account of his detention by the Tupí people of Brazil, Warhaftige Historia und beschreibung eyner Landtschafft der Wilden Nacketen, Grimmigen Menschfresser-Leuthen in der Newenwelt America gelegen ("True Story and Description of a Country of Wild, Naked, Grim, Man-eating People in the New World, America").source
• 1558October 17 – Postal history of Poland: King Sigismund II Augustus appoints an Italian merchant living in Kraków to organise a consolidated postal service in Poland, the origin of Poczta Polska.source
• 1558English explorer Anthony Jenkinson travels from Moscow to Astrakhan and Bukhara. He is the first Englishman to note that the Amu Darya changed course, to start flowing into the Aral Sea.source
• 1559August 15 – Led by Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano, a Spanish missionary colony of 1,500 men, on 13 ships, arrives from Vera Cruz at Pensacola Bay, founding the oldest European settlement in the mainland U.S. (St. Augustine is founded in 1565.)source
• 1560March 7 – A Spanish-led expedition, commanded by Juan de la Cerda, 4th Duke of Medinaceli, overruns the Tunisian island of Djerba.source
• 1561August 20 – English merchant Anthony Jenkinson arrives in Moscow on his second expedition to the Grand Duchy of Moscow.source
• 1561The first Calvinists settle in England, after fleeing Flanders.source
• 1562March 15 – English merchant Anthony Jenkinson has an audience with Ivan the Terrible in Moscow, before departing the city on April 27 and continuing his second expedition through the Grand Duchy of Moscow to Qazvin, capital of the Safavid dynasty in Persia.source
• 1562May 1 – Jean Ribault, French navigator, lands in Florida, and later establishes a Huguenot colony at Charlesfort on Parris Island, South Carolina.source
• 1562October – Privateer John Hawkins undertakes the first of several slave trading voyages, attacking Portuguese slave ships off the West African coast and forcibly transporting the enslaved Africans onboard to Spanish colonies in the Americas to sell. Hawkins arrives at the island of Hispaniola in the Spanish West Indies, where he illicitly sells the enslaved Africans to local colonists, as his presence is technically in violation of Spanish law.source
• 1564April 20 – French explorer René Goulaine de Laudonnière and a group of 300 Huguenot Protestants depart from Le Havre on three ships (L'Élisabeth, Le Faucon and Le Breton) to colonize what is now the U.S. state of Florida.source
• 1564June 22 – French settlers abandon Charlesfort, the first French attempt at colonizing what is now the United States, and, with the help of a relief force commanded by René Goulaine, establish Fort Caroline in Florida, near what is now the city of Jacksonville.source
• 1564September 28 – English merchant Anthony Jenkinson returns to London from his second expedition to the Grand Duchy of Moscow, having gained a considerable extension of trading rights for the English Muscovy Company.source
• 1564November 21 – Spanish Conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi sails from Mexico. Later, he will conquer the Philippine Islands, founding Manila.source
• 1565August 28 (feast day of St. Augustine) – The Spanish fleet of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés first sights land in Florida.source
• 1566May 1 – Charles IX, King of France, completes his grand tour of his kingdom, returning to Paris a little more than 27 months and 2500 mi km after his departure on January 24, 1564.source
• 1567Although sparse maritime trade existed since its founding, the Ming dynasty government of China officially revokes the haijin maritime trade ban, reinstating foreign trade with all countries except Japan.source
• 1567King Frederick II of Denmark and Norway founds Fredrikstad in Norway.source
• 1568February 7 – Members of a Spanish expedition, commanded by Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira, become the first Europeans to see the Solomon Islands, landing at Santa Isabel Island.source
• 1569The trade compact of 1536 is renewed, exempting French merchants from Ottoman law, and allowing them to travel, buy and sell throughout the sultan's dominions, and to pay low customs duties on French imports and exports.source
• 1570September 10 – A party of ten Spanish Jesuit missionaries land on the Virginia Peninsula of North America to establish the Ajacán Mission, which will be massacred in February 1571.source
• 1570Spanish conquistador Juan de Salcedo (in the service of Miguel López de Legazpi) begins the conquest of the Kingdom of Maynila.source
• 1571Using mercury in the silver extraction process dramatically increases the output of the Potosí mine; thus begins the great silver flow that links the New and Old Worlds.source
• 1572July 11 – Humphrey Gilbert leads 1,500 volunteers from England, on an expedition to assist the Sea Beggars.source
• 1573April 1 – On his expedition to the New World, Francis Drake and his crew make their most lucrative capture by seizing a wagon train of silver at Panama, near the settlement of Nombre de Dios.source
• 1573December 17 – Portuguese colonists are expelled from the Maldives, where Portugal has had a presence since 1558, by order of the Sultan's son, Mohamed Bodu Takurufanu al-Azam.source
• 1573The first Spanish galleon, laden with silver for the porcelain and silk trade with the Ming Dynasty of China, lands at Manila in the Philippines. This occasion marks the beginning of the Spanish silver trade to China, that will trump that of the Portuguese, the latter of whom acted as an intermediary between the silver mines of Japan, and the luxury items in China to be purchased with that silver. Most of the silver entering China comes from what is now Mexico, Bolivia, and Peru in the New World.source
• 1574July 26 – Kılıç Ali Pasha begins construction of an Ottoman fortress on the coastline of Morocco, directly across Andalusia in mainland Spain.source
• 1574November 22 – The Juan Fernández Islands in the South Pacific Ocean are discovered by Spanish sailor Juan Fernández.source
• 1575February 11 – Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais arrives in southeastern Africa to colonize what is now Angola.source
• 1575April 2 – English privateer Gilbert Horseley and his crew sail into the Bay of Honduras in Central America and conduct three days of raids of Spanish settlements and ships.source
• 1575November 22 – Portuguese navigator Manuel de Mesquita Perestrelo departs from Mozambique on a mission for to map the coastline, completing the task on March 13.source
• 1575Abraham Ortelius becomes a geographer to Philip II of Spain.source
• 1576January 20 – Martín Enríquez de Almanza, Viceroy of New Spain, founds the settlement of León, in what is later the state of Guanajuato in Mexico.source
• 1576January 25 – Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais founds the settlement of São Paulo da Assumpção de Loanda on the southwestern coast of Africa, modern Luanda, capital of Angola.source
• 1576July 11 – English navigator Martin Frobisher sights Greenland.source
• 1576August 11 – English navigator Martin Frobisher, on his search for the Northwest Passage through North America, enters the bay now named after him in Canada.source
• 1577May 27 – English explorer Martin Frobisher departs from Blackwall in his flagship, HMS Ayde, along with the ships Gabriel and Michael, to begin the English expedition to North America.source
• 1577August 23 – Martin Frobisher ends his expedition to Canada and he and his crew begin the journey back to England on the ships Ayde, Gabriel and Michael.source
• 1577September 23 – The first Inuit to see Europe— Kalicho, Arnaq, and Arnaq's son, Nutaaq— are brought as captives of Martin Frobisher when HMS Gabriel arrived in England at Bristol. All three were captured on Baffin Island, and none of the three survive to the end of the year.source
• 1577December 13 – Francis Drake leaves Plymouth, England, aboard the Pelican, with four other ships and 164 men, on an expedition against the Spanish, along the Pacific coast of the Americas, which will become his circumnavigation.source
• 1578May 31 – Martin Frobisher sails from Harwich in England with 15 ships to North America, where he will arrive at Frobisher Bay in July on his third expedition.source
• 1578June 20 – The Frobisher expedition reaches Greenland.source
• 1578July 2 – The Frobisher expedition reaches Canada and enters what is now Frobisher Bay. One of the ships, the Dennis, is wrecked on an iceberg.source
• 1578July 31 – According to some accounts, Englishman Martin Frobisher holds the first Thanksgiving celebration by Europeans in Canada, on Newfoundland, after he and his fleet encounter two ships that they feared had been lost. However, the celebration involves no feast and is limited to a sermon by the expedition's minister and Frobisher's men giving praise.source
• 1578August 20–September 6 – After renaming this flagship, Pelican to the Golden Hind, Francis Drake and his fleet begin their passage through the Strait of Magellan.source
• 1578August 31 – The Forbisher expedition departs North America for its journey back to England.source
• 1578September 6 – After 16 days travel, the fleet of Francis Drake completes its traverse of the Strait of Magellan between the tip of South America and Tierra del Fuego. Upon entering the Pacific Ocean, the fleet encounters violent storms. The supply ship Marigold, with over 100 men under the command of John Thomas, is lost with all hands off of Cape Horn. The rest of the fleet continues its voyage around the world.source
• 1578November 19 – Humphrey Gilbert and Walter Ralegh set out from Plymouth in England, leading an expedition to establish a colony in North America. They will be forced to turn back six months later.source
• 1578Fur trade begins in Newfoundland in North America.source
• 1579March 1 – Off of the coast of what is now Ecuador, the English galleon Golden Hind, captained by Francis Drake, captures the Spanish freighter Nuestra Señora de la Concepción (unofficially called "Cagafuego") and its cargo, including 26 tons of silver and 1,000 pounds of gold.source
• 1579June 17 – Francis Drake, during his circumnavigation of the world, lands in modern-day California, which he claims for Queen Elizabeth I. With an English claim here and in Newfoundland, it becomes the basis for English colonial charters which will claim all land from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from "sea to sea." Drake's claim is called Nova Albion (New England), and subsequent maps will show all lands north of New Spain and New Mexico under this name.source
• 1580September 26 – Francis Drake returns to Plymouth, England from his voyage of circumnavigation (westbound) on the Golden Hind, the second completed in a continuous voyage, and the first under its original commander.source
• 1580The Old City of Zamość is established in Poland, by Jan Zamoyski.source
• 1581April 4 – Following his circumnavigation of the world, Francis Drake is knighted by Elizabeth I of England.source
• 1582April 16 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Lerma founds the settlement of Salta, Argentina.source
• 1582Jesuit Matteo Ricci is allowed to enter the country.source
• 1582The sultanate of Morocco begins to press southward, in search of a greater share of the trans-Saharan trade.source
• 1583April 9 – A Burmese Army force of 16,000 men, commanded by Thado Dhamma Yaza II of Prome and Nawrahta Minsaw of Lan Na to suppress the rebellious of the Shan States in the modern-day Yunnan province of China, is welcomed by King Nanda Bayin at the royal capital, Pegu, after a successful punitive expedition. The commanders bring with them the rebel chief from the Sanda state.source
• 1583August 29 – English ship Delight, with Humphrey Gilbert's expedition, becomes the first of over 350 ships over time to run aground and be wrecked on Sable Island in the North Atlantic.source
• 1583September 9 – English ship Squirrel, the flagship of explorer, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, sinks in a storm with all hands along with all but one of Gilbert's colonial expedition. Gilbert and his men had been returning from North America after claiming Newfoundland in the name of Queen Elizabeth.source
• 1583The Ottoman fleet crosses into the Western Mediterranean and raids the Italian coastline. In Corsica, the towns of Sartene and Arbellara are sacked (summer).source
• 1584June 4 – Walter Raleigh sends Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe to explore the Outer Banks of Virginia (modern-day North Carolina), with a view to establishing an English colony; they locate Roanoke Island.source
• 1584Belgian cartographer and geographer Abraham Ortelius features Ming dynasty-era Chinese carriages with masts and sails, in his atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum; concurrent and later Western writers also take note of this peculiar Chinese invention.source
• 1585July 29 – Aboard the English ship Tiger, Roanoke expedition leader Ralph Lane negotiates an agreement with the Secotan people, who are represented by Granganimeo, the brother of the Secotan leader, King Wingino. Although the Secotans grant Lane's request to allow the English to live on Roanoke Island, he is told that they will receive no assistance from the natives, because of problems the previous year with Walter Raleigh.source
• 1585August 8 – English explorer John Davis enters Cumberland Sound in Baffin Island, in his quest for the Northwest Passage.source
• 1585August 17 – The Roanoke colonists complete their construction of a fort under the direction of Ralph Lane to make the first permanent English settlement in North America.source
• 1585History of chocolate in Spain: First recorded commercial importation of chocolate to Europe, from Veracruz in Mexico to Seville in Spain.source
• 1587January 7 – Sir Walter Raleigh appoints John White to be the Governor of the Roanoke Colony, to be established later in the year by English colonists on Roanoke Island off the coast of the modern-day U.S. state of North Carolina. White and 121 other colonists depart from Portsmouth on three ships on May 8 and arrive at Croatoan Island on July 22.source
• 1587January 14 – In Japan, Chancellor of the Realm Toyotomi Hideyoshi ends Portugal's control of the port of Nagasaki after six years. Omura Sumitada had leased the fishing village to Portuguese Jesuits on August 15, 1580.source
• 1587March 15 – English sailor Sir Francis Drake accepts a privateering commission from Queen Elizabeth to disrupt shipping routes in order to slow supplies from Italy and Andalucia to Lisbon, to trouble enemy fleets in their home ports, to capture Spanish treasure ships and to attack the Spanish Armada if it were to sail for England. On 12 April, his fleet sails from Plymouth.source
• 1587April 29 – Singeing the King of Spain's Beard: On his expedition against Spain, English sailor Sir Francis Drake leads a raid in the Bay of Cádiz, sinking or capturing at least 30 ships of the Spanish fleet, delaying by a year the sailing of the Spanish Armada for England.source
• 1587May 8 – The second expedition to establish an English colony at Roanoke Island in North America departs from England with two ships, supplies, and 121 people under the command of John White.source
• 1587May 19 – John Davis sets out from Dartmouth, Devon, for a third attempt to find the Northwest Passage.source
• 1587July 22 – Roanoke Colony: A group of English settlers arrive on Roanoke Island off North Carolina, to re-establish the deserted colony.source
• 1587October 18 – Landing of the first Filipinos: The first Filipinos in North America land in Morro Bay, near San Luis Obispo in modern-day California.source
• 1587November 4 – During the circumnavigation of the world by Thomas Cavendish, the English ships capture the Spanish galleon Santa Ana and its treasure of 100 troy pounds of gold (worth 122,000 Spanish pesos) and a total treasure worth 2.1 million pesos.source
• 1588May 28 – The Spanish Armada, with 130 ships and 30,000 men, begins to set sail from the Tagus estuary, under the command of the Duke of Medina Sedonia and Juan Martínez de Recalde, heading for the English Channel (it will take until May 30 for all of the ships to leave port).source
• 1588June 18 – Sailing across the South Atlantic Ocean towards England, near the end of their voyage around the world, Thomas Cavendish and his East India Company fleet stumble across the Portuguese-controlled island of Saint Helena. While Saint Helena has been under the control of Portugal for 80 years, England had been unaware of its existence.source
• 1588June 19 – Twenty days after departing from Spain, the Spanish Armada receives a foreshadowing of disaster to come during the summer as a storm scatters part of the fleet, postponing the invasion. Alonso de Guzmán y Sotomayor, Duke of Medina Sidonia and commander of the Spanish expedition, returns the fleet to the port of Coruna for repairs, and writes a letter to King Philip, urging him to abandon plans for invasion of England, and to reach an honorable settlement, but the King refuses. The Spanish expedition resumes on July 21.source
• 1588July 31 – The first engagement between the English and Spanish fleets (off Plymouth) results in a victory for the English, under command of Lord Howard of Effingham and Sir Francis Drake.source
• 1588August 2 – The English fleet defeats the Spanish fleet, off the Isle of Portland.source
• 1588August 7 – The English fleet defeats the Spanish fleet off the coast of Flanders.source
• 1588August 9 – The Duke of Medina Sidonia, commander of the Spanish Armada, decides to return the fleet to Spain after two days of trying to reach the coast of Flanders to meet up with the army of the Duke of Parma.source
• 1588August 12 – The fleeing Spanish Armada sails past the Firth of Forth, and the English call off their pursuit, entirely avoiding the storm which destroys most of the Spanish fleet as it attempts to round Scotland and the west coast of Ireland.source
• 1588September 9 – English captain Thomas Cavendish completes his circumnavigation in a record time of 781 days, returning to Plymouth more than two years after setting off on July 21, 1586. The previous record had been 1,018 days by the expedition of Sir Francis Drake from 1577 to 1580. By the time of his return, Cavendish has only his flagship, Desire, after having started with two other vessels (the warship Content and the 40-ton supply ship Hugh Gallant).source
• 1588The Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I of England is created, to celebrate the English defeat of the Spanish Armada, and to assert the strength of Elizabeth herself.source
• 1589February 6 – King Philip of Portugal issues an order to the Viceroy in Portuguese India (Goa) for the arrest of explorer João da Gama, but da Gama continues toward Mexico without being aware of the order.source
• 1589March 6 – Ralph Fitch becomes the first known person from England to set foot on the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and stays five days.source
• 1589April 13 – An English Armada, led by Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norreys, and largely financed by private investors, sets sail to attack the Iberian Peninsula's Atlantic coast, but fails to achieve any naval advantage.source
• 1589July 1 – The English Armada, commanded by Sir Francis Drake, returns to Portsmouth after almost three months of pillaging the Spanish kingdoms.source
• 1589October 22 – King James VI of Scotland sails to Norway to meet his bride, Anne of Denmark as part of a fleet of six Scottish Navy ships, and is accompanied by Lord Maitland of Thirlestane, the Lord Chancellor of Scotland.source
• 1590January 6 – García Hurtado de Mendoza becomes the new Viceroy of Peru (nominally including most of South America except for Brazil). He will serve until 1596.source
• 1590January 10 – Construction of the Fortezza Nuova around the city of Livorno begins in Italy in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany on the orders of Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and continues for more than 14 years.source
• 1590August 18 – John White, governor of the Colony of Roanoke, returns to Roanoke after having left the North American colony in 1587 to get supplies. Upon arrival at, the crew of the ships Hopewell and Moonlight find that the Roanoke Colony is deserted, with the only clues to where the colonist went being the word "CRO" carved into a tree, and the word CROATOAN (believed to be a reference to Hatteras Island, where the colonists formerly lived).source
• 1590October 24 – After an unsuccessful search of the "lost colony" of Roanoke, English officer John White and the surviving crew of the ships Hopewell and Moonlight return to England.source
• 1591April 10 – English merchant James Lancaster sets off on a voyage to the East Indies.source
• 1591May 30 – Timbuktu is captured by an expedition of Arma people sent by the Saadi ruler of Morocco and led by Judar Pasha.source
• 1592August 9 – English explorer John Davis, commander of the Desire, probably discovers the Falkland Islands.source
• 1593Irish pirate queen Grace O'Malley meets with Queen Elizabeth I of England at Greenwich.source
• 1594February 2 – England's Admiral Richard Hawkins and the crew of the ship HMS Dainty become the first Europeans to see the Falkland Islands.source
• 1594June 5 – Willem Barents makes his first voyage to the Arctic Ocean, in search of the Northeast Passage.source
• 1595February 6 – Sir Walter Raleigh of England departs from Plymouth to begin an expedition to South Americasource
• 1595April 15 – Sir Walter Raleigh travels up the Orinoco River, in search of the fabled city of El Dorado.source
• 1595May 29 – George Somers and Amyas Preston travel to aid Raleigh's El Dorado expedition but failing to meet him instead raid the Spanish Province of Venezuelasource
• 1595July 21 – A Spanish expedition of four ships, led by navigator and explorer Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira, makes the first European landing in Polynesia, on the Marquesas Islands. Despite an initially good reception with the natives, fighting begins and the Mendaña ships leave after two weeks. One of the ships, the Santa Ysabel, disappears during the voyage toward the Solomon Islands.source
• 1595September 8 – The first European colony in the South Seas is established as Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña claims Nendö Island (one of the Solomon Islands) and claims it for Spain as the colony of Santa Cruz. Malaria, a mutiny of some of the Spanish soldiers, and a fight with the indigenous people kills 47 of the settlers, including Mendaña on October 18.source
• 1595October 30 – The surviving members of Spain's Mendaña expedition to Santa Cruz, including Mendaña's widow Isabel Barreto, decide to abandon the Santa Cruz colony in the South Pacific.source
• 1595November 7 – Portuguese explorer Sebastião Rodrigues Soromenho, who had departed from the Philippines on the ship San Agustin on July 5 with cargo of Asian silk, porcelain, and almost 100 passengers and crew, drops anchor at Drakes Bay in what is now the U.S. state of California. He and some of his crew come ashore, where they are greeted by Native Americans. A gale in a few weeks later sinks the San Agustin, killing at least 7 people and ruining the ship's cargo. The crew salvages a launch that they had brought with them.source
• 1595December 8 – A group of 80 people from the sunken ship San Agustin, are able to leave California on the launch which they had brought along, which they name the San Buenaventura. The group sails past San Francisco Bay and arrives at Chacala in Mexico on January 17.source
• 1596May 18 – Willem Barents leaves Vlie, on his third and final Arctic voyage.source
• 1596June 10 – Willem Barents and Jacob van Heemskerk discover Bear Island.source
• 1596June 17 – Willem Barents discovers Spitsbergen.source
• 1596June 24 – Cornelis de Houtman arrives in Banten, the first Dutch sailor to reach Indonesia.source
• 1596July 5 – Capture of Cádiz: An English fleet, commanded by Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and Lord Howard of Effingham, sacks Cádiz.source
• 1596September 20 – Diego de Montemayor founds the city of Monterrey, Mexico.source
• 1597February 8 – Sir Anthony Shirley, England's "best-educated pirate", raids Jamaica.source
• 1597August 14 – First Dutch Expedition to Indonesia: A Dutch expedition commanded by Cornelis de Houtman returns to Amsterdam, after having successfully reached Java. This achievement opens the Spice trade, which had until then been monopolised by the Portuguese, to the Dutch, who in the next years launch several more expeditions to the Indies.source
• 1597August 17 – Islands Voyage: Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and Sir Walter Raleigh set sail on an expedition to the Azores.source
• 159712 million pesos of silver cross the Pacific. Although it is unknown just how much silver flowed from the Spanish base of Manila in the Philippines to the Ming Dynasty of China, it is known that the main port for the Mexican silver trade—Acapulco—shipped out 150,000 to 345,000 kg (4 to 9 million taels) of silver annually from this year to 1602.source
• 1598June 27 – The ill-fated Dutch expedition of Jacques Mahu begins as his ship Hoop, along with the ships Liefde, Geloof, Trouwe and Blijde Boodschap, departs from Rotterdam.source
• 1598September 17 – Second Dutch Expedition to Indonesia: Jacob Corneliszoon van Neck and three ships commanded by him are separated from the Dutch Republic fleet of Admiral Wybrand van Warwyck, and land on a Portuguese-charted island, Ilha do Cisne. Van Neck names the island Mauritius, after Maurice, Prince of Orange. Although Diogo Fernandes Pereira and sailors from Portugal had, in 1507, become the first Europeans to find Mauritius, van Neck's men apparently are the first to sight the dodo, a now extinct bird.source
• 1598The Spanish establish themselves in El Piñal, a trading port on the coast of China in the Pearl River Delta.source
• 1599July 17 – Second Dutch Expedition to East Indies: A Dutch fleet returns to Amsterdam from what is now Indonesia, carrying 600,000 pounds of pepper and 250,000 pounds of cloves and nutmeg.source