In 1492 Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean with three ships, looking for a westward sea route to Asia. Which country's king and queen paid for that voyage?

Columbus's ships made their first landfall on October 12, 1492, after about five weeks at sea. Where did that landing happen?

On his third voyage, in 1498, Columbus steered farther south than before and touched a continental mainland for the first time, near the Gulf of Paria. Which continent's coast was that?

In 1513 a Spanish expedition sailed north from Puerto Rico and came ashore on the green peninsula its leader named La Florida. Who led that expedition?

Hernando de Soto landed on Florida's Gulf coast in 1539 and marched inland for two years through the Southeast. In 1541 his expedition reached the banks of a very wide river. Which river was it?

In 1534 Jacques Cartier sailed west from the port of Saint-Malo, entered a large gulf in northeastern North America, and planted a wooden cross at Gaspe. For which country did he claim that land?

On his second voyage, in 1535, Cartier sailed deep inland along a great river to the villages of Stadacona and Hochelaga. Which river did he travel up?

In 1608 Samuel de Champlain built a fortified trading post for France on the St. Lawrence River, at the site of the village of Stadacona. Which settlement did he found there?

Jacques Cartier and Samuel de Champlain both sailed for France into the St. Lawrence valley. Which of them got there first?

True or False: after founding Quebec, Champlain traveled south in 1609 to a long lake lying between what are now New York and Vermont.

In 1609 Henry Hudson, an English sea captain, sailed the Half Moon across the Atlantic for a trading company that had hired him. Which country's company was it?

In 1609 Henry Hudson sailed the Half Moon into a large harbor and then far upstream along a wide river, which he claimed for the Dutch. In which present-day state is most of that river?

A year later, in 1610, Hudson set out on the Discovery and entered the huge northern bay in Canada now named Hudson Bay. Who paid for that voyage?

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese sea captain, but the fleet of five ships he led out of port in 1519 sailed under another country's flag. Which country paid for that expedition?

Magellan's fleet crossed the Atlantic and then followed the eastern coast of South America southward. In 1520 it passed through a cold, twisting waterway near the southern tip of that continent. What did the fleet reach next?

Magellan's fleet left Spain in 1519 heading west, and in 1522 one of its ships came back to Spain still sailing westward. What did that voyage become the first to do?

Jacques Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence River on his second voyage, and Hernando de Soto's expedition reached the Mississippi River. Which explorer reached his river first?

In 1519 Hernan Cortes sailed from Cuba, landed on the mainland coast, and marched inland to the island city of Tenochtitlan, where the ruler Moctezuma II received him. Tenochtitlan stood in what is now which country?

In 1531 Francisco Pizarro left Panama with three small ships and fewer than two hundred men, sailing south along the coast toward Peru. Which ocean's coast did he follow?

After landing in Peru, Pizarro's small force climbed into the Andes and in November 1532 seized the ruler Atahualpa at Cajamarca. Which empire did Atahualpa rule?