VASCO NUÑEZ DE BALBOA
(Jerez de los Caballeros, Spain, 1475 - Acla, Panama Current, 1519) Spanish Discoverer. Galician origin and uncertain lineage, it was probably son Nuno Arias Balboa gentleman and a lady of Badajoz.
In 1501 he undertook
In 1501 he undertook
his first trip to the issuance of Rodrigo de Bastidas through the Caribbean islands that belong to the current Colombia
In 1511, Balboa won the governorship; Moved by the desire to discover the sea speaking Indians, went into the continent and the September 25, 1513 ended one of the greatest feats of the Spanish conquest of America, the discovery of the South Sea, name given then the Pacific Ocean.
After the arrival of Pedrarias Davila, the new governor, Balboa retained charges ahead of South Sea and governor of Panama and Coiba, and began exploring the Pacific coast. On hearing that his father was to be replaced, he returned to Acla to support it, but Pedrarias accused him of conspiring against the Crown, and the finder was tried, sentenced to death and executed in Acla.
AMERIGO VESPUCCI
(Amerigo Vespucci, Florence, 1454 - Seville, 1512) Italian navigator whose name would cause the name of the American continent. As is known, Christopher Columbus died believing he had reached the Indies, without suspecting that those islands which had taken possession in the name of the Crown of Castile belonged to a new continent. A friend of his, Amerigo Vespucci, was asked to tell the old Europe that lands found by Columbus were not Asian, but part of a "fourth pars" the world that would give his name involuntarily. This man, insignificant compared to the great figure of Columbus, also died without knowing the effects of its revolutionary news: posthumous glory, derived from the casual baptism for himself and his lineage.
The name of America began to spread and flood everything. Earlier, in 1505, Amerigo Vespucci had become Amerigo Vespucci upon being granted naturalization in the kingdoms of Castile and Leon. His fame as a merchant seaman and had grown considerably, to the point of taking you to participate in the Board of Burgos next to sailors, explorers and cartographers as illustrious as Finch, Solis and Juan de la Cosa in 1507, and being named greater pilot House of Hiring the following year.
At his death in 1512, the New World had definitely become America.
FERDINAND MAGELLAN
Ferdinand Magellan was born in Portugal, circa 1480. As a boy, he studied mapmaking and navigation. n 1505, when Ferdinand Magellan was in his mid-20s, he joined a Portuguese fleet that was sailing to East Africa. By 1509, he found himself at the Battle of Diu, in which the Portuguese destroyed Egyptian ships in the Arabian Sea. Two years later, he explored Malacca, located in present-day Malaysia, and participated in the conquest of Malacca's port. It was there that he acquired a native servant he named Enrique. It is possible that Magellan sailed as far as the Moluccas, islands in Indonesia, then called the Spice Islands. The Moluccas were the original source of some of the world's most valuable spices, including cloves and nutmeg. The conquest of spice-rich countries was, as a result, a source of much European competition.
JUAN SEBASTIÁN ELCANO
Spanish navigator who completed the first circumnavigation of the world (Guetaria, Guipúzcoa, 1476 - Pacific Ocean, 1526). The first news we have of him show him as a Basque sailor with ample nautical knowledge, who participated in the expedition of Cisneros to Algiers (1509) and the Italian campaigns of the Great Capitán.En 1518 he met in Seville to the Portuguese navigator Magellan that preparing an expedition to the service of Spain to find the route to the Indies by sailing west. Elcano enlisted in the expedition, which departed from Sanlucar de Barrameda in 1519 and explored the Rio de la Plata and Patagonia; there Elcano helped quell a first riot, but participated in a second attempt against Magallanes, who spared his life, is not to consider him or find him guilty essential to continue the journey (1520).
With reduced to a secondary role Elcano, the expedition discovered the passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the South American continent and the Mariana Islands and the Philippines. When Magellan died in a battle with the natives of the Philippine island of Mactam (1521) the expedition was under the command successively several of his captains who vied for power, still exploring the islands, building relationships with local chiefs and earnestly seeking the route to the Moluccas.
