1499—Amerigo Vespucci, or Americus Vespucius, a Florentine merchant, conducts a vessel to the coast of South America. Returning to Europe he publishes a book, claiming to have first discovered the continent, and it receives his name, America.
1500—Columbus is sent to Spain in chains by a Spanish officer whom the jealousy of Ferdinand, the Spanish King, placed over him. Treated with injustice and neglect, he died at Valladolid, Spain, in 1506.
1512—Ponce de Leon, a Spaniard in search of the “Fountain of Youth,” discovers Florida, near St. Augustine.
1524—John Verrazani, a Florentine, commanding a French vessel, touches the coast near Wilmington, North Carolina, and explores it north to Nova Scotia. He wrote a narrative describing the country and the Indians.
1535—James Cartier, a French navigator, discovers the St. Lawrence.
1541—He builds a Fort at Quebec, but soon abandons it.
—De Soto, a Spaniard, discovers the Mississippi. He traveled, with six hundred men, through Georgia and Alabama, and fought a bloody battle with the Indians near Mobile. These Indians had a walled town of several thousand inhabitants. Thence he traveled west to the Mississippi and Red Rivers. He died at the mouth of the Red river, May 21, 1542.
1553—Persecution of the English Puritans commences.
1562—French Huguenots attempt a settlement in Florida. They gave the name Carolina to the coast on the north. The first colony is discouraged, and returns. In the year 1564 another Huguenot colony is founded on the River May.
1565—Melendez, a Spaniard, founds St. Augustine, September 8th, with five hundred colonists. It was the first permanent settlement in the United States.