In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue

This section of the Timeline of United States history concerns events before 1600.

1400s

• 1492-Christopher Columbus lands on one of the Bahamas Islands, "discovering" the New World (for 15th century Europe)
• 1494-Treaty of Tordesillas divides the New World between Spain and Portugal
• 1497-John Cabot is the first European since the Vikings to reach the North American mainland, which he claims for England

1500s

• 1513-Vasco Núñez de Balboa crosses isthmus of Panama, sees Pacific Ocean
• 1513-Juan Ponce de León claims Florida for Spain
• 1519-Hernán Cortés defeats Tlaxcala, a small state neighboring the Aztec empire
• 1520s-Spanish begin conquest of Maya civilization
• 1521-Cortes destroys the Aztec empire
• 1524-Giovanni da Verrazano, working for France, explores coastline from present-day North Carolina to Maine
• 1542-Hernando de Soto discovers the Mississippi River, strengthening Spanish claims to the interior of North America
• 1570s-Iroquois League founded
• 1587-Sir Walter Raleigh founds Roanoke Colony, the first English settlement in the New World, in the Virginia territory
• 1590-Roanoke found deserted