Explorers from the Age of Discovery

Continuing our current theme of the history of exploration today’s timeline looks at some of the most important explorers from the Age of Discovery.
On a mobile device? Unfortunately Histropedia isn’t yet optimised for mobiles or tablets. For the best experience you’ll want to bookmark this and check it out on the Desktop.
“The Age of Discovery is a historical period of European global exploration that started in the early 15th century with the first Portuguese discoveries in the Atlantic Archipelagos and Africa, as well as the discovery of America by Spain in 1492, and the discovery of the ocean route to the East in 1498, and by a series of European naval expeditions across the Atlantic and later the Pacific, which continued until the 18th century”
Wikipedia
This is by no means a complete list, rather an overview of some of the more important explorers of their time who have been selected for this timeline for their involvement in some of the major explorations of the age.
Highlights from the timeline
Bartolomeu Dias
In 1488 Dias become the first European to sail round the southernmost tip of Africa.
Christopher Columbus
Although Columbus wasn’t the first European to reach America, his voyages Between 1492 and 1500 led to the first lasting contact between Europe and America and initiated the Spanish colonization of the New World.
Vasco da Gama
In 1498 Gama became the first European to reach India directly by Sea. The route was one of the most important discoveries during the Age of Exploration and paved the way for the Portuguese colonial empire in Asia.
Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano
Magellan’s expedition of 1519–1522 was the first to connect the Atlantic and Pacific (the passage was made via the Strait of Magellan) and the first to cross the Pacific. After Magellan’s death in the Philippines Elcano took command and completed the first circumnavigation of the globe.
View the entire timeline to discover more amazing explorers and learn about the expeditions that made them famous.
Sources: Wikipedia – Age of Discovery & Wikipedia – List of Explorations
Images sourced from Wikipedia Articles.
Timeline: All Histropedia Timelines are published under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA)
Sean McBirnie
Latest posts by Sean McBirnie (see all)
- Visualising Wikidata on Interactive Timelines using HistropediaJS - November 10, 2017
- WikidataCon 2017 - November 6, 2017
- 5 Interactive Timelines of Previous Oscar Winners - February 26, 2017
it isn’t good.
Hi Lily,
Thanks for your comment! If you would like to let me know why you haven’t enjoyed the site or timeline we can look at ways we might be able to improve Histropedia, we are still in beta and all feedback we can act on is highly appreciated.