Getting To Know An Explorer

Giovanni da Verrazzano

• An Italian explorer who served France
• Discovered what is now the New York Harbor in 1524

Jacques Cartier

• A French explorer
• Went into Canada and named the St. Lawrence river in 1534
• Found an island and named it Mont Royal, now present day Montreal

Samuel de Champlain

• A French explorer
• Sailed up St. Lawrence
• Claimed a region of Canada and named it Quebec in 1608

Jacques Marquette and Louis Joilet

• French explorers
• Explored the Great Lakes and the upper Mississippi in 1673

Sieur de La Salle

• French explorer
• Explored the lower Mississippi in 1683
• Claimed the river valley he named Louisiana

Henry Hudson

• English explorer for the Netherlands
• Explored present day New York in 1609
• Named three waterways the Hudson River, Hudson Bay, and Hudson Strait

Bartolomeu Dias

• Portuguese explorer
• Sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488

Vasco da Gama

• Portuguese explorer
• Sailed around Africa to India for trade in 1497

Ferdinan Magellan

• Portuguese explorer
• First person to circumnavigate the world in 1519

Christopher Columbus

• Spanish explorer
• Sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas in 1492