European maritime powers establish global trade routes and colonial empires, connecting the hemispheres through the Columbian Exchange and transforming the world forever.
The Portuguese seizure of this North African port marks the beginning of European overseas expansion.
The Portuguese navigator proves that a sea route to Asia around Africa is possible, opening the door to direct European-Asian maritime trade.
Christopher Columbus's voyage across the Atlantic connects the Eastern and Western Hemispheres for the first time in millennia, initiating the Columbian Exchange.
Spain and Portugal divide the non-European world between them, with papal blessing — a remarkable act of imperial presumption that shapes colonial history.
The Portuguese navigator establishes the first direct sea route from Europe to India, breaking the Muslim-Venetian monopoly on the spice trade.
Hernán Cortés, with a few hundred soldiers and devastating smallpox, overthrows the Aztec Empire — demonstrating the lethal combination of European weapons and disease.
Though Magellan dies in the Philippines, his expedition completes the first circumnavigation, proving the world's sphericity and the vastness of the Pacific.
Francisco Pizarro captures the Inca emperor Atahualpa and topples the largest pre-Columbian American state, seizing enormous quantities of gold and silver.
Potatoes, maize, and tomatoes reshape Old World agriculture while horses, cattle, wheat, and diseases transform the Americas — a permanent biological revolution.
Regular trade between Manila and Acapulco connects Asia to the Americas, creating the first truly global trade network as American silver flows to China.