Discovering America

==New World==
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas (including certain Atlantic and Pacific oceanic islands to which the closest continental shelf is that of the Americas, such as the Caribbean islands and Bermuda), and sometimes[clarification needed] Oceania (Australasia).
The term originated in the early 16th century after Europeans made landfall in what would later be called "the Americas" in the age of discovery, expanding the geographical horizon of classical geographers, who had thought of the world as consisting of Africa, Asia, and Europe, collectively now referred to as the Old World.
The term was first coined by Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci. The Americas were also referred to as the "fourth part of the world".
==History==
Although there had been previous trans-oceanic contact, large-scale European colonization of the Americas began with the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492. The first Spanish settlement in the Americas was La Isabela in northern Hispaniola. This town was abandoned shortly after in favor of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, founded in 1496, the oldest American city of European foundation. This was the base from which the Spanish monarchy administered its new colonies and their expansion. On the continent, Panama City on the Pacific coast of Central America, founded on August 5, 1519, played an important role, being the base for the Spanish conquest of South America. According to the anthropologist R. Thornton, the spread of new diseases brought by Europeans and Africans killed many of the inhabitants of North America and South America, with a general population crash of Native Americans occurring in the mid-16th century, often well ahead of European contact.[38] Native peoples and European colonizers came into widespread conflict, resulting in what David Stannard has called a genocide of the indigenous populations. Early European immigrants were often part of state-sponsored attempts to found colonies in the Americas. Migration continued as people moved to the Americas fleeing religious persecution or seeking economic opportunities. Millions of individuals were forcibly transported to the Americas as slaves, prisoners or indentured servants.
In 1500 Pedro Alvares Cabral went to America and discovered a new land which they called as Brazil.
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire began in February 1519 when Hernán Cortes arrived at the port in Veracruz with ca. 500 conquistadores, and later moved on to the Aztec capital. On his search for gold and other riches, Cortés decided to invade and conquer the Aztec empire.
Category:Discovering America
Category:Christopher Columbus
Category:Hernán Cortes
Category:Pedro Alvares Cabral
Category:Leif Erikson
Category:Amerigo Vespucci