Lisbon
Portugal
Launching point of the Age of Exploration. From here, Magellan, Vasco da Gama, and other navigators set sail to map the world, initiating the age of global maritime empires.
Associated figures
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was a Genoese navigator whose 1492 transatlantic voyage, sponsored by the Spanish Crown, established permanent European contact with the Americas. His four voyages across the Atlantic opened the way for widespread European exploration, colonization, and the Columbian Exchange between the Old and New Worlds.
Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer who organized the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe, sailing westward from Spain in 1519. Though Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines in 1521, his voyage - completed by Juan Sebastian Elcano - proved the Earth's sphericity and revealed the true vastness of the Pacific Ocean.