title: Conquistador

text: During the 1500s, the Spanish began to travel through and colonize North America. They were looking for gold in foreign kingdoms. By 1511 there were rumours of undiscovered lands to the northwest of Hispaniola. Juan Ponce de León equipped three ships with at least 200 men at his own expense and set out from Puerto Rico on 4 March 1513 to Florida and surrounding coastal area. Another early motive was the search for the Seven Cities of Gold, or "Cibola", rumoured to have been built by Native Americans somewhere in the desert Southwest. In 1536 Francisco de Ulloa, the first documented European to reach the Colorado River, sailed up the Gulf of California and a short distance into the river's delta.


title: Conquistador

text: The Basques were fur trading, fishing cod and whaling in Terranova (Labrador and Newfoundland) in 1520, and in Iceland by at least the early 17th century. They established whaling stations at the former, mainly in Red Bay, and probably established some in the latter as well. In Terranova they hunted bowheads and right whales, while in Iceland they appear to have only hunted the latter. The Spanish fishery in Terranova declined over conflicts between Spain and other European powers during the late 16th and early 17th centuries.


title: Conquistador

text: In 1524 the Portuguese Estêvão Gomes, who had sailed in Ferdinand Magellan's fleet, explored Nova Scotia, sailing South through Maine, where he entered New York Harbor and the Hudson River and eventually reached Florida in August 1525. As a result of his expedition, the 1529 Diego Ribeiro world map outlined the East coast of North America almost perfectly.


title: Conquistador

text: The Spaniard Cabeza de Vaca was the leader of the Narváez expedition of 600 men that between 1527 and 1535 explored the mainland of North America. From Tampa Bay, Florida, on 15 April 1528, they marched through Florida. Traveling mostly on foot, they crossed Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, and Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and Coahuila. After several months of fighting native inhabitants through wilderness and swamp, the party reached Apalachee Bay with 242 men. They believed they were near other Spaniards in Mexico, but there was in fact 1500 miles of coast between them. They followed the coast westward, until they reached the mouth of the Mississippi River near to Galveston Island.


title: Conquistador

text: Later they were enslaved for a few years by various Native American tribes of the upper Gulf Coast. They continued through Coahuila and Nueva Vizcaya; then down the Gulf of California coast to what is now Sinaloa, Mexico, over a period of roughly eight years. They spent years enslaved by the Ananarivo of the Louisiana Gulf Islands. Later they were enslaved by the "Hans", the "Capoques" and others. In 1534 they escaped into the American interior, contacting other Native American tribes along the way. Only four men, Cabeza de Vaca, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, and an enslaved Moroccan Berber named Estevanico, survived and escaped to reach Mexico City. In 1539, Estevanico was one of four men who accompanied Marcos de Niza as a guide in search of the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, preceding Coronado. When the others were struck ill, Estevanico continued alone, opening up what is now New Mexico and Arizona. He was killed at the Zuni village of Hawikuh in present-day New Mexico.


title: Conquistador

text: The viceroy of New Spain Antonio de Mendoza, for whom is named the Codex Mendoza, commissioned several expeditions to explore and establish settlements in the northern lands of New Spain in 1540–42. Francisco Vázquez de Coronado reached Quivira in central Kansas. Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo explored the western coastline of Alta California in 1542–43.


title: Conquistador

text: Francisco Vázquez de Coronado's 1540–1542 expedition began as a search for the fabled Cities of Gold, but after learning from natives in New Mexico of a large river to the west, he sent García López de Cárdenas to lead a small contingent to find it. With the guidance of Hopi Indians, Cárdenas and his men became the first outsiders to see the Grand Canyon. However, Cárdenas was reportedly unimpressed with the canyon, assuming the width of the Colorado River at six feet (1.8 m) and estimating rock formations to be the size of a person. After unsuccessfully attempting to descend to the river, they left the area, defeated by the difficult terrain and torrid weather.


title: Conquistador

text: In 1540, Hernando de Alarcón and his fleet reached the mouth of the Colorado River, intending to provide additional supplies to Coronado's expedition. Alarcón may have sailed the Colorado as far upstream as the present-day California–Arizona border. However, Coronado never reached the Gulf of California, and Alarcón eventually gave up and left. Melchior Díaz reached the delta in the same year, intending to establish contact with Alarcón, but the latter was already gone by the time of Díaz's arrival. Díaz named the Colorado River "Río del Tizón", while the name "Colorado" ("Red River") was first applied to a tributary of the Gila River.


title: Conquistador

text: In 1540, expeditions under Hernando de Alarcon and Melchior Diaz visited the area of Yuma and immediately saw the natural crossing of the Colorado River from Mexico to California by land as an ideal spot for a city, as the Colorado River narrows to slightly under 1000 feet wide in one small point. Later military expeditions that crossed the Colorado River at the Yuma Crossing include Juan Bautista de Anza's (1774).


title: Conquistador

text: The marriage between Luisa de Abrego, a free black domestic servant from Seville and Miguel Rodríguez, a white Segovian conquistador in 1565 in St. Augustine (Spanish Florida), is the first known and recorded Christian marriage anywhere in the continental United States.


title: Conquistador

text: The Chamuscado and Rodríguez Expedition explored New Mexico in 1581–1582. They explored a part of the route visited by Coronado in New Mexico and other parts in the southwestern United States between 1540 and 1542.


title: Conquistador

text: The viceroy of New Spain Don Diego García Sarmiento sent another expedition in 1648 to explore, conquer and colonize the Californias.


title: Conquistador

text: In 1525 Charles I of Spain ordered an expedition led by friar García Jofre de Loaísa to go to Asia by the western route to colonize the Maluku Islands (known as Spice Islands, now part of Indonesia), thus crossing first the Atlantic and then the Pacific oceans. Ruy López de Villalobos sailed to the Philippines in 1542–43. From 1546 to 1547 Francis Xavier worked in Maluku among the peoples of Ambon Island, Ternate, and Morotai, and laid the foundations for the Christian religion there.


title: Conquistador

text: In 1564, Miguel López de Legazpi was commissioned by the viceroy of New Spain, Luís de Velasco, to explore the Maluku Islands where Magellan and Ruy López de Villalobos had landed in 1521 and 1543, respectively. The expedition was ordered by Philip II of Spain, after whom the Philippines had earlier been named by Villalobos. El Adelantado Legazpi established settlements in the East Indies and the Pacific Islands in 1565. He was the first governor-general of the "Spanish East Indies". After obtaining peace with various indigenous tribes, López de Legazpi made the Philippines the capital in 1571.


title: Conquistador

text: The Spanish settled and took control of Tidore in 1603 to trade spices and counter Dutch encroachment in the archipelago of Maluku. The Spanish presence lasted until 1663, when the settlers and military were moved back to the Philippines. Part of the Ternatean population chose to leave with the Spanish, settling near Manila in what later became the municipality of Ternate.


title: Conquistador

text: In 1542, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo traversed the coast of California and named many of its features. In 1601, Sebastián Vizcaíno mapped the coastline in detail and gave new names to many features. Martín de Aguilar, lost from the expedition led by Sebastián Vizcaíno, explored the Pacific coast as far north as Coos Bay in present-day Oregon.


title: Conquistador

text: Since the 1549 arrival to Kagoshima (Kyushu) of a group of Jesuits with St. Francis Xavier missionary and Portuguese traders, Spain was interested in Japan. In this first group of Jesuit missionaries were included Spaniards Cosme de Torres and Juan Fernandez.


title: Conquistador

text: In 1611, Sebastián Vizcaíno surveyed the east coast of Japan and from the year of 1611 to 1614 he was ambassador of King Felipe III in Japan returning to Acapulco in the year of 1614. In 1608, he was sent to search for two mythical islands called Rico de Oro (island of gold) and Rico de Plata (island of silver).


title: Conquistador

text: As a seafaring people in the south-westernmost region of Europe, the Portuguese became natural leaders of exploration during the Middle Ages. Faced with the options of either accessing other European markets by sea, by exploiting its seafaring prowess, or by land, and facing the task of crossing Castile and Aragon territory, it is not surprising that goods were sent via the sea to England, Flanders, Italy and the Hanseatic league towns.


title: Conquistador

text: One important reason was the need for alternatives to the expensive eastern trade routes that followed the Silk Road. Those routes were dominated first by the republics of Venice and Genoa, and then by the Ottoman Empire after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The Ottomans barred European access. For decades the Spanish Netherlands ports produced more revenue than the colonies since all goods brought from Spain, Mediterranean possessions, and the colonies were sold directly there to neighbouring European countries: wheat, olive oil, wine, silver, spice, wool and silk were big businesses.


title: Conquistador

text: The gold brought home from Guinea stimulated the commercial energy of the Portuguese, and its European neighbours, especially Spain. Apart from their religious and scientific aspects, these voyages of discovery were highly profitable.


title: Conquistador

text: They had benefited from Guinea's connections with neighbouring Iberians and north African Muslim states. Due to these connections, mathematicians and experts in naval technology appeared in Portugal. Portuguese and foreign experts made several breakthroughs in the fields of mathematics, cartography and naval technology.


title: Conquistador

text: Under Afonso V (1443–1481), surnamed the African, the Gulf of Guinea was explored as far as Cape St. Catherine ("Cabo Santa Caterina"), and three expeditions in 1458, 1461 and 1471, were sent to Morocco; in 1471 Arzila (Asila) and Tangier were captured from the Moors.


title: Conquistador

text: Portuguese explored the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans before the Iberian Union period (1580–1640).


title: Conquistador

text: Under John II (1481–1495) the fortress of São Jorge da Mina, the modern Elmina, was founded for the protection of the Guinea trade. Diogo Cão, or Can, discovered the Congo in 1482 and reached Cape Cross in 1486.


title: Conquistador

text: In 1483 Diogo Cão sailed up the uncharted Congo River, finding Kongo villages and becoming the first European to encounter the Kongo kingdom.


title: Conquistador

text: On 7 May 1487, two Portuguese envoys, Pêro da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva, were sent traveling secretly overland to gather information on a possible sea route to India, but also to inquire about Prester John. Covilhã managed to reach Ethiopia. Although well received, he was forbidden to depart. Bartolomeu Dias crossed the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, thus proving that the Indian Ocean was accessible by sea.


title: Conquistador

text: In 1498, Vasco da Gama reached India. In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered Brazil, claiming it for Portugal. In 1510, Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Goa in India, Ormuz in the Persian Strait, and Malacca. The Portuguese sailors sailed eastward to such places as Taiwan, Japan, and the island of Timor. Several writers have also suggested the Portuguese were the first Europeans to discover Australia and New Zealand.


title: Conquistador

text: Álvaro Caminha, in Cape Verde islands, who received the land as a grant from the crown, established a colony with Jews forced to stay on São Tomé Island. Príncipe island was settled in 1500 under a similar arrangement. Attracting settlers proved difficult; however, the Jewish settlement was a success and their descendants settled many parts of Brazil.


title: Conquistador

text: From their peaceful settlings in secured islands along Atlantic Ocean (archipelagos and islands such as Madeira, the Azores, Cape Verde, São Tomé, Príncipe, and Annobón) they travelled to coastal enclaves trading almost every goods of African and Islander areas like spices (hemp, opium, garlic), wine, dry fish, dried meat, toasted flour, leather, fur of tropical animals and seals, whaling ... but mainly ivory, black slaves, gold and hardwoods. They maintaining trade ports in Congo (M'banza), Angola, Natal (City of Cape Good Hope, in Portuguese "Cidade do Cabo da Boa Esperança"), Mozambique (Sofala), Tanzania (Kilwa Kisiwani), Kenya (Malindi) to Somalia. The Portuguese following the maritime trade routes of Muslims and Chinese traders, sailed the Indian Ocean. They were on Malabar Coast since 1498 when Vasco da Gama reached Anjadir, Kannut, Kochi and Calicut.


title: Conquistador

text: Da Gama in 1498 marked the beginning of Portuguese influence in Indian Ocean. In 1503 or 1504, Zanzibar became part of the Portuguese Empire when Captain Ruy Lourenço Ravasco Marques landed and demanded and received tribute from the sultan in exchange for peace. Zanzibar remained a possession of Portugal for almost two centuries. It initially became part of the Portuguese province of Arabia and Ethiopia and was administered by a governor general. Around 1571, Zanzibar became part of the western division of the Portuguese empire and was administered from Mozambique. It appears, however, that the Portuguese did not closely administer Zanzibar. The first English ship to visit Unguja, the "Edward Bonaventure" in 1591, found that there was no Portuguese fort or garrison. The extent of their occupation was a trade depot where produce was purchased and collected for shipment to Mozambique. "In other respects, the affairs of the island were managed by the local 'king,' the predecessor of the Mwinyi Mkuu of Dunga." This hands-off approach ended when Portugal established a fort on Pemba around 1635 in response to the Sultan of Mombasa's slaughter of Portuguese residents several years earlier.


title: Conquistador

text: In west Africa "Cidade de Congo de São Salvador" was founded some time after the arrival of the Portuguese, in the pre-existing capital of the local dynasty ruling at that time (1483), in a city of the Luezi River valley. Portuguese were established supporting one Christian local dynasty ruling suitor.


title: Conquistador

text: When Afonso I of Kongo was established the Roman Catholic Church in Kongo kingdom. By 1516 Afonso I sent various of his children and nobles to Europe to study, including his son Henrique Kinu a Mvemba, who was elevated to the status of bishop in 1518. Afonso I wrote a series of letters to the kings of Portugal Manuel I and João III of Portugal concerning to the behavior of the Portuguese in his country and their role in the developing slave trade, complaining of Portuguese complicity in purchasing illegally enslaved people and the connections between Afonso's men, Portuguese mercenaries in Kongo's service and the capture and sale of slaves by Portuguese.


title: Conquistador

text: The aggregate of Portugal's colonial holdings in India were Portuguese India. The period of European contact of Ceylon began with the arrival of Portuguese soldiers and explorers of the expedition of Lourenço de Almeida, the son of Francisco de Almeida, in 1505. The Portuguese founded a fort at the port city of Colombo in 1517 and gradually extended their control over the coastal areas and inland. In a series of military conflicts, political manoeuvres and conquests, the Portuguese extended their control over the Sinhalese kingdoms, including Jaffna (1591), Raigama (1593), Sitawaka (1593), and Kotte (1594,) but the aim of unifying the entire island under Portuguese control failed. The Portuguese, led by Pedro Lopes de Sousa, launched a full-scale military invasion of the Kingdom of Kandy in the Campaign of Danture of 1594. The invasion was a disaster for the Portuguese, with their entire army wiped out by Kandyan guerrilla warfare.


title: Conquistador

text: More envoys were sent in 1507 to Ethiopia, after Socotra was taken by the Portuguese. As a result of this mission, and facing Muslim expansion, regent queen Eleni of Ethiopia sent ambassador Mateus to king Manuel I of Portugal and to the Pope, in search of a coalition. Mateus reached Portugal via Goa, having returned with a Portuguese embassy, along with priest Francisco Álvares in 1520. Francisco Álvares book, which included the testimony of Covilhã, the "Verdadeira Informação das Terras do Preste João das Indias" ("A True Relation of the Lands of Prester John of the Indies") was the first direct account of Ethiopia, greatly increasing European knowledge at the time, as it was presented to the pope, published and quoted by Giovanni Battista Ramusio.


title: Conquistador

text: In 1509, the Portuguese under Francisco de Almeida won a critical victory in the battle of Diu against a joint Mamluk and Arab fleet sent to counteract their presence in the Arabian Sea. The retreat of the Mamluks and Arabs enabled the Portuguese to implement their strategy of controlling the Indian Ocean.


title: Conquistador

text: Afonso de Albuquerque set sail in April 1511 from Goa to Malacca with a force of 1,200 men and seventeen or eighteen ships. Following his capture of the city on 24 August 1511, it became a strategic base for Portuguese expansion in the East Indies; consequently the Portuguese were obliged to build a fort they named "A Famosa" to defend it. That same year, the Portuguese, desiring a commercial alliance, sent an ambassador, Duarte Fernandes, to the kingdom of Ayudhya, where he was well received by king Ramathibodi II. In 1526, a large force of Portuguese ships under the command of Pedro Mascarenhas was sent to conquer Bintan, where Sultan Mahmud was based. Earlier expeditions by Diogo Dias and Afonso de Albuquerque had explored that part of the Indian Ocean, and discovered several islands new to Europeans. Mascarenhas served as Captain-Major of the Portuguese colony of Malacca from 1525 to 1526, and as viceroy of Goa, capital of the Portuguese possessions in Asia, from 1554 until his death in 1555. He was succeeded by Francisco Barreto, who served with the title of "governor-general".


title: Conquistador

text: To enforce a trade monopoly, Muscat, and Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, were seized by Afonso de Albuquerque in 1507, and in 1507 and 1515, respectively. He also entered into diplomatic relations with Persia. In 1513 while trying to conquer Aden, an expedition led by Albuquerque cruised the Red Sea inside the Bab al-Mandab, and sheltered at Kamaran island. In 1521, a force under António Correia conquered Bahrain, ushering in a period of almost eighty years of Portuguese rule of the Persian Gulf. In the Red Sea, Massawa was the most northerly point frequented by the Portuguese until 1541, when a fleet under Estevão da Gama penetrated as far as Suez.


title: Conquistador

text: In 1511, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to reach the city of Guangzhou by the sea, and they settled on its port for a commercial monopoly of trade with other nations. They were later expelled from their settlements, but they were allowed the use of Macau, which was also occupied in 1511, and to be appointed in 1557 as the base for doing business with Guangzhou. The quasi-monopoly on foreign trade in the region would be maintained by the Portuguese until the early seventeenth century, when the Spanish and Dutch arrived.


title: Conquistador

text: The Portuguese Diogo Rodrigues explored the Indian Ocean in 1528, he explored the islands of Réunion, Mauritius, and Rodrigues, naming it the Mascarene or Mascarenhas Islands, after his countryman Pedro Mascarenhas, who had been there before. The Portuguese presence disrupted and reorganised the Southeast Asian trade, and in eastern Indonesia they introduced Christianity. After the Portuguese annexed Malacca in August 1511, one Portuguese diary noted 'it is thirty years since they became Moors'- giving a sense of the competition then taking place between Islamic and European influences in the region. Afonso de Albuquerque learned of the route to the Banda Islands and other 'Spice Islands', and sent an exploratory expedition of three vessels under the command of António de Abreu, Simão Afonso Bisigudo and Francisco Serrão. On the return trip, Francisco Serrão was shipwrecked at Hitu island (northern Ambon) in 1512. There he established ties with the local ruler who was impressed with his martial skills. The rulers of the competing island states of Ternate and Tidore also sought Portuguese assistance and the newcomers were welcomed in the area as buyers of supplies and spices during a lull in the regional trade due to the temporary disruption of Javanese and Malay sailings to the area following the 1511 conflict in Malacca. The spice trade soon revived but the Portuguese would not be able to fully monopolize nor disrupt this trade.


title: Conquistador

text: Allying himself with Ternate's ruler, Serrão constructed a fortress on that tiny island and served as the head of a mercenary band of Portuguese seamen under the service of one of the two local feuding sultans who controlled most of the spice trade. Such an outpost far from Europe generally only attracted the most desperate and avaricious, and as such the feeble attempts at Christianization only strained relations with Ternate's Muslim ruler. Serrão urged Ferdinand Magellan to join him in Maluku, and sent the explorer information about the Spice Islands. Both Serrão and Magellan, however, perished before they could meet one another, with Magellan dying in battle in Macatan. In 1535 Sultan Tabariji was deposed and sent to Goa in chains, where he converted to Christianity and changed his name to Dom Manuel. After being declared innocent of the charges against him he was sent back to reassume his throne, but died en route at Malacca in 1545. He had however, already bequeathed the island of Ambon to his Portuguese godfather Jordão de Freitas. Following the murder of Sultan Hairun at the hands of the Europeans, the Ternateans expelled the hated foreigners in 1575 after a five-year siege.


title: Conquistador

text: The Portuguese first landed in Ambon in 1513, but it only became the new centre for their activities in Maluku following the expulsion from Ternate. European power in the region was weak and Ternate became an expanding, fiercely Islamic and anti-European state under the rule of Sultan Baab Ullah (r. 1570 – 1583) and his son Sultan Said. The Portuguese in Ambon, however, were regularly attacked by native Muslims on the island's northern coast, in particular Hitu which had trading and religious links with major port cities on Java's north coast. Altogether, the Portuguese never had the resources or manpower to control the local trade in spices, and failed in attempts to establish their authority over the crucial Banda Islands, the nearby centre of most nutmeg and mace production. Following Portuguese missionary work, there have been large Christian communities in eastern Indonesia particularly among the Ambonese. By the 1560s there were 10,000 Catholics in the area, mostly on Ambon, and by the 1590s there were 50,000 to 60,000, although most of the region surrounding Ambon remained Muslim.


title: Conquistador

text: Mauritius was visited by the Portuguese between 1507 (by Diogo Fernandes Pereira) and 1513. The Portuguese took no interest in the isolated Mascarene islands. Their main African base was in Mozambique, and therefore the Portuguese navigators preferred to use the Mozambique Channel to go to India. The Comoros at the north proved to be a more practical port of call.


title: Conquistador

text: Based on the Treaty of Tordesillas, Manuel I claimed territorial rights in the area visited by John Cabot in 1497 and 1498. To that end, in 1499 and 1500, the Portuguese mariner João Fernandes Lavrador visited the northeast Atlantic coast and Greenland and the north Atlantic coast of Canada, which accounts for the appearance of "Labrador" on topographical maps of the period. Subsequently, in 1501 and 1502 the Corte-Real brothers explored and charted Greenland and the coasts of present-day Newfoundland and Labrador, claiming these lands as part of the Portuguese Empire. Whether or not the Corte-Reals expeditions were also inspired by or continuing the alleged voyages of their father, João Vaz Corte-Real (with other Europeans) in 1473, to "Terra Nova do Bacalhau" ("Newfoundland of the Codfish"), remains controversial, as the 16th century accounts of the 1473 expedition differ considerably. In 1520–1521, João Álvares Fagundes was granted donatary rights to the inner islands of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Accompanied by colonists from mainland Portugal and the Azores, he explored Newfoundland and Nova Scotia (possibly reaching the Bay of Fundy on the Minas Basin), and established a fishing colony on Cape Breton Island, that would last some years or until at least 1570s, based on contemporary accounts.


title: Conquistador

text: Brazil was claimed by Portugal in April 1500, on the arrival of the Portuguese fleet commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral. The Portuguese encountered natives divided into several tribes. The first settlement was founded in 1532.


title: Conquistador

text: Some European countries, especially France, were also sending excursions to Brazil to extract brazilwood. Worried about the foreign incursions and hoping to find mineral riches, the Portuguese crown decided to send large missions to take possession of the land and combat the French. In 1530, an expedition led by Martim Afonso de Sousa arrived to patrol the entire coast, ban the French, and to create the first colonial villages, like São Vicente, at the coast. As time passed, the Portuguese created the Viceroyalty of Brazil. Colonization was effectively begun in 1534, when Dom João III divided the territory into twelve hereditary captaincies, a model that had previously been used successfully in the colonization of the Madeira Island, but this arrangement proved problematic and in 1549 the king assigned a Governor-General to administer the entire colony, Tomé de Sousa.


title: Conquistador

text: The Portuguese frequently relied on the help of Jesuits and European adventurers who lived together with the aborigines and knew their languages and culture, such as João Ramalho, who lived among the Guaianaz tribe near today's São Paulo, and Diogo Álvares Correia, who lived among the Tupinamba natives near today's Salvador de Bahia.


title: Conquistador

text: The Portuguese assimilated some of the native tribes while others were enslaved or exterminated in long wars or by European diseases to which they had no immunity. By the mid-16th century, sugar had become Brazil's most important export and the Portuguese imported African slaves to produce it.


title: Conquistador

text: Mem de Sá was the third Governor-General of Brazil in 1556, succeeding Duarte da Costa, in Salvador of Bahia when France founded several colonies.


title: Conquistador

text: Mem de Sá was supporting of Jesuit priests, Fathers Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta, who founded São Vicente in 1532, and São Paulo, in 1554.


title: Conquistador

text: French colonists tried to settle in present-day Rio de Janeiro, from 1555 to 1567, the so-called France Antarctique episode, and in present-day São Luís, from 1612 to 1614 the so-called France Équinoxiale. Through wars against the French the Portuguese slowly expanded their territory to the southeast, taking Rio de Janeiro in 1567, and to the northwest, taking São Luís in 1615.


title: Conquistador

text: In the 1620s and 1630s, the Dutch West India Company established many trade posts or colonies. The Spanish silver fleet, which carried silver from Spanish colonies to Spain, were seized by Piet Heyn in 1628. In 1629 Suriname and Guyana were established. In 1630 the West India Company conquered part of Brazil, and the colony of New Holland (capital Mauritsstad, present-day Recife) was founded.


title: Conquistador

text: John Maurice of Nassau prince of Nassau-Siegen, was appointed as the governor of the Dutch possessions in Brazil in 1636 by the Dutch West India Company on recommendation of Frederick Henry. He landed at Recife, the port of Pernambuco and the chief stronghold of the Dutch, in January 1637.


title: Conquistador

text: By a series of successful expeditions, he gradually extended the Dutch possessions from Sergipe on the south to São Luís de Maranhão in the north.


title: Conquistador

text: In 1624 most of the inhabitants of the town Pernambuco (Recife), in the future Dutch colony of Brazil were Sephardic Jews who had been banned by the Portuguese Inquisition to this town at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. As some years afterward the Dutch in Brazil appealed to Holland for craftsmen of all kinds, many Jews went to Brazil; about 600 Jews left Amsterdam in 1642, accompanied by two distinguished scholars – Isaac Aboab da Fonseca and Moses Raphael de Aguilar. In the struggle between Holland and Portugal for the possession of Brazil the Dutch were supported by the Jews.


title: Conquistador

text: From 1630 to 1654, the Dutch set up more permanently in the "Nordeste" and controlled a long stretch of the coast most accessible to Europe, without, however, penetrating the interior. But the colonists of the Dutch West India Company in Brazil were in a constant state of siege, in spite of the presence in Recife of John Maurice of Nassau as governor. After several years of open warfare, the Dutch formally withdrew in 1661.


title: Conquistador

text: Portuguese sent military expeditions to the Amazon Rainforest and conquered British and Dutch strongholds, founding villages and forts from 1669. In 1680 they reached the far south and founded Sacramento on the bank of the Rio de la Plata, in the Eastern Strip region (present-day Uruguay).


title: Conquistador

text: In the 1690s, gold was discovered by explorers in the region that would later be called Minas Gerais (General Mines) in current Mato Grosso and Goiás.


title: Conquistador

text: Before the Iberian Union period (1580–1640), Spain tried to prevent Portuguese expansion into Brazil with the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas. After the Iberian Union period, the Eastern Strip were settled by Portugal. This was disputed in vain, and in 1777 Spain confirmed Portuguese sovereignty.


title: Conquistador

text: In 1578, the Saadi sultan Ahmad al-Mansur, contemporary of Queen Elizabeth I, defeated Portugal at the Battle of Ksar El Kebir, beating the young king Sebastian I, a devout Christian who believed in the crusade to defeat Islam. Portugal had landed in North Africa after Abu Abdallah asked him to help recover the Saadian throne. Abu Abdallah's uncle, Abd Al-Malik, had taken it from Abu Abdallah with Ottoman Empire support. The defeat of Abu Abdallah and the death of Portugal's king led to the end of the Portuguese Aviz dynasty and later to the integration of Portugal and its empire at the Iberian Union for 60 years under Sebastian's uncle Philip II of Spain. Philip was married to his relative Mary I cousin of his father, due to this, Philip was King of England and Ireland in a dynastic union with Spain.


title: Conquistador

text: As a result of the Iberian Union, Phillip II's enemies became Portugal's enemies, such as the Dutch in the Dutch–Portuguese War, England or France. The English-Spanish wars of 1585–1604 were clashes not only in English and Spanish ports or on the sea between them but also in and around the present-day territories of Florida, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Panama. War with the Dutch led to invasions of many countries in Asia, including Ceylon and commercial interests in Japan, Africa (Mina), and South America. Even though the Portuguese were unable to capture the entire island of Ceylon, they were able to control its coastal regions for a considerable time.


title: Conquistador

text: From 1580 to 1670 mostly, the Bandeirantes in Brazil focused on slave hunting, then from 1670 to 1750 they focused on mineral wealth. Through these expeditions and the Dutch–Portuguese War, Colonial Brazil expanded from the small limits of the Tordesilhas Line to roughly the same borders as current Brazil.


title: Conquistador

text: In the 17th century, taking advantage of this period of Portuguese weakness, the Dutch occupied many Portuguese territories in Brazil. John Maurice, Prince of Nassau-Siegen was appointed as the governor of the Dutch possessions in Brazil in 1637 by the Dutch West India Company. He landed at Recife, the port of Pernambuco, in January 1637. In a series of expeditions, he gradually expanded from Sergipe on the south to São Luís de Maranhão in the north. He likewise conquered the Portuguese possessions of Elmina Castle, Saint Thomas, and Luanda and Angola. The Dutch intrusion into Brazil was long lasting and troublesome to Portugal. The Seventeen Provinces captured a large portion of the Brazilian coast including the provinces of Bahia, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará, and Sergipe, while Dutch privateers sacked Portuguese ships in both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The large area of Bahia and its city, the strategically important Salvador, was recovered quickly by an Iberian military expedition in 1625.


title: Conquistador

text: After the dissolution of the Iberian Union in 1640, Portugal re-established authority over its lost territories including remaining Dutch controlled areas. The other smaller, less developed areas were recovered in stages and relieved of Dutch piracy in the next two decades by local resistance and Portuguese expeditions.


title: Conquistador

text: Spanish Formosa was established in Taiwan, first by Portugal in 1544 and later renamed and repositioned by Spain in Keelung. It became a natural defence site for the Iberian Union. The colony was designed to protect Spanish and Portuguese trade from interference by the Dutch base in the south of Taiwan. The Spanish colony was short-lived due to the unwillingness of Spanish colonial authorities in Manila to defend it.


title: Conquistador

text: While technological superiority, military strategy and forging local alliances played an important role in the victories of the conquistadors in the Americas, their conquest was greatly facilitated by old world diseases: smallpox, chicken pox, diphtheria, typhus, influenza, measles, malaria and yellow fever. The diseases were carried to distant tribes and villages. This typical path of disease transmission moved much faster than the conquistadors, so that as they advanced, resistance weakened. Epidemic disease is commonly cited as the primary reason for the population collapse. The American natives lacked immunity to these infections.


title: Conquistador

text: When Francisco Coronado and the Spaniards first explored the Rio Grande Valley in 1540, in modern New Mexico, some of the chieftains complained of new diseases that affected their tribes. Cabeza de Vaca reported that in 1528, when the Spanish landed in Texas, "half the natives died from a disease of the bowels and blamed us." When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the Incan empire, a large portion of the population had already died in a smallpox epidemic. The first epidemic was recorded in 1529 and killed the emperor Huayna Capac, the father of Atahualpa. Further epidemics of smallpox broke out in 1533, 1535, 1558 and 1565, as well as typhus in 1546, influenza in 1558, diphtheria in 1614 and measles in 1618.


title: Conquistador

text: Recently developed tree-ring evidence shows that the illness which reduced the population in Aztec Mexico was aided by a great drought in the 16th century, and which continued through the arrival of the Spanish conquest. This has added to the body of epidemiological evidence indicating that cocoliztli epidemics (Nahuatl name for viral haemorrhagic fever) were indigenous fevers transmitted by rodents and aggravated by the drought. The cocoliztli epidemic from 1545 to 1548 killed an estimated 5 to 15 million people, or up to 80% of the native population. The cocoliztli epidemic from 1576 to 1578 killed an estimated, additional 2 to 2.5 million people, or about 50% of the remainder.


title: Conquistador

text: The American researcher H.F. Dobyns said that 95% of the total population of the Americas died in the first 130 years, and that 90% of the population of the Inca Empire died in epidemics. Cook and Borah of the University of California at Berkeley believe that the indigenous population in Mexico declined from 25.2 million in 1518 to 700,000 people in 1623, less than 3% of the original population.


title: Conquistador

text: The conquistadors found new animal species, but reports confused these with monsters such as giants, dragons, or ghosts. Stories about castaways on mysterious islands were common.


title: Conquistador

text: An early motive for exploration was the search for Cipango, the place where gold was born. Cathay and Cibao were later goals. The Seven Cities of Gold, or "Cibola", was rumoured to have been built by Native Americans somewhere in the desert Southwest. As early as 1611, Sebastián Vizcaíno surveyed the east coast of Japan and searched for two mythical islands called Rico de Oro ('Rich in Gold') and Rico de Plata ('Rich in Silver').


title: Conquistador

text: Books such as The Travels of Marco Polo fuelled rumours of mythical places. Stories included the half-fabulous Christian Empire of "Prester John", the kingdom of the White Queen on the "Western Nile" (Sénégal River), the Fountain of Youth, cities of Gold in North and South America such as Quivira, Zuni-Cibola Complex, and El Dorado, and wonderful kingdoms of the Ten Lost Tribes and women called Amazons. In 1542, Francisco de Orellana reached the Amazon River, naming it after a tribe of warlike women he claimed to have fought there. Others claimed that the similarity between "Indio" and "Iudio", the Spanish-language word for 'Jew' around 1500, revealed the indigenous peoples' origin. Portuguese traveller Antonio de Montezinos reported that some of the Lost Tribes were living among the Native Americans of the Andes in South America. Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés wrote that Ponce de León was looking for the waters of Bimini to cure his aging. A similar account appears in Francisco López de Gómara's "Historia General de las Indias" of 1551. Then in 1575, Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, a shipwreck survivor who had lived with the Native Americans of Florida for 17 years, published his memoir in which he locates the Fountain of Youth in Florida, and says that Ponce de León was supposed to have looked for them there. This land somehow also became confused with the Boinca or Boyuca mentioned by Juan de Solis, although Solis's navigational data placed it in the Gulf of Honduras.


title: Conquistador

text: Sir Walter Raleigh and some Italian, Spanish, Dutch, French and Portuguese expeditions were looking for the wonderful Guiana empire that gave its name to the present day countries of the Guianas.


title: Conquistador

text: Several expeditions went in search of these fabulous places, but returned empty-handed, or brought less gold than they had hoped. They found other precious metals such as silver, which was particularly abundant in Potosí, in modern-day Bolivia. They discovered new routes, ocean currents, trade winds, crops, spices and other products. In the sail era knowledge of winds and currents was essential, for example, the Agulhas current long prevented Portuguese sailors from reaching India. Various places in Africa and the Americas have been named after the imagined cities made of gold, rivers of gold and precious stones.


title: Conquistador

text: Shipwrecked off Santa Catarina island in present-day Brazil, Aleixo Garcia living among the Guaranís heard tales of a "White King" who lived to the west, ruling cities of incomparable riches and splendour. Marching westward in 1524 to find the land of the "White King", he was the first European to cross South America from the East. He discovered a great waterfall and the Chaco Plain. He managed to penetrate the outer defences of the Inca Empire on the hills of the Andes, in present-day Bolivia, the first European to do so, eight years before Francisco Pizarro.


title: Conquistador

text: Garcia looted a booty of silver. When the army of Huayna Cápac arrived to challenge him, Garcia then retreated with the spoils, only to be assassinated by his Indian allies near San Pedro on the Paraguay River.


title: Conquistador

text: The Spanish discovery of what they thought at that time was India, and the constant competition of Portugal and Spain led to a desire for secrecy about every trade route and every colony. As a consequence, many documents that could reach other European countries included fake dates and faked facts, to mislead any other nation's possible efforts. For example, the Island of California refers to a famous cartographic error propagated on many maps during the 17th and 18th centuries, despite contradictory evidence from various explorers. The legend was initially infused with the idea that California was a terrestrial paradise, peopled by black Amazons.


title: Conquistador

text: The tendency to secrecy and falsification of dates casts doubts about the authenticity of many primary sources. Several historians have hypothesized that John II may have known of the existence of Brazil and North America as early as 1480, thus explaining his wish in 1494 at the signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas, to push the line of influence further west. Many historians suspect that the real documents would have been placed in the Library of Lisbon. Unfortunately, a fire following the 1755 Lisbon earthquake destroyed nearly all of the library's records, but an extra copy available in Goa was transferred to Lisbon's Tower of Tombo, during the following 100 years. The Corpo Cronológico (Chronological Corpus), a collection of manuscripts on the Portuguese explorations and discoveries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, was inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2007 in recognition of its historical value "for acquiring knowledge of the political, diplomatic, military, economic and religious history of numerous countries at the time of the Portuguese Discoveries."


title: Conquistador

text: Ferdinand II King of Aragon and Regent of Castile, incorporated the American territories into the Kingdom of Castile and then withdrew the authority granted to governor Christopher Columbus and the first conquistadors. He established direct royal control with the Council of the Indies, the most important administrative organ of the Spanish Empire, both in the Americas and in Asia. After unifying Castile, Ferdinand introduced to Castile many laws, regulations and institutions such as the Inquisition, that were typical in Aragon. These laws were later used in the new lands.


title: Conquistador

text: The Laws of Burgos, created in 1512–1513, were the first codified set of laws governing the behavior of settlers in Spanish colonial America, particularly with regards to Native Americans. They forbade the maltreatment of indigenous people, and endorsed their conversion to Catholicism.


title: Conquistador

text: The evolving structure of colonial government was not fully formed until the third quarter of the 16th century; however, "los Reyes Católicos" designated Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca to study the problems related to the colonization process. Rodríguez de Fonseca effectively became minister for the Indies and laid the foundations for the creation of a colonial bureaucracy, combining legislative, executive and judicial functions. Rodríguez de Fonseca presided over the council, which contained a number of members of the Council of Castile ("Consejo de Castilla"), and formed a "Junta de Indias" of about eight counsellors. Emperor Charles V was already using the term "Council of the Indies" in 1519.


title: Conquistador

text: The Crown reserved for itself important tools of intervention. The "capitulacion" clearly stated that the conquered territories belonged to the Crown, not to the individual. On the other hand, "concessions" allowed the Crown to guide the Companies conquests to certain territories, depending on their interests. In addition, the leader of the expedition received clear instructions about their duties towards the army, the native population, the type of military action. A written report about the results was mandatory. The army had a royal official, the "veedor". The "veedor" or notary, ensured they complied with orders and instructions and preserved the King's share of the booty.


title: Conquistador

text: In practice the Capitán had almost unlimited power. Besides the Crown and the conquistador, they were very important the backers who were charged with anticipating the money to the Capitán and guarantee payment of obligations.


title: Conquistador

text: Armed groups sought supplies and funds in various ways. Financing was requested from the King, delegates of the Crown, the nobility, rich merchants or the troops themselves. The more professional campaigns were funded by the Crown. Campaigns were sometimes initiated by inexperienced governors, because in Spanish Colonial America, offices were bought or handed to relatives or cronies. Sometimes, an expedition of conquistadors were a group of influential men who had recruited and equipped their fighters, by promising a share of the booty.


title: Conquistador

text: Aside from the explorations predominated by Spain and Portugal, other parts of Europe also aided in colonization of the New World. King Charles I was documented to receive loans from the German Welser family to help finance the Venezuela expedition for gold. With numerous armed groups aiming to launch explorations well into the Age of Conquest, the Crown became indebted, allowing opportunity for foreign European creditors to finance the explorations.


title: Conquistador

text: The conquistador borrowed as little as possible, preferring to invest all their belongings. Sometimes, every soldier brought his own equipment and supplies, other times the soldiers received gear as an advance from the conquistador.


title: Conquistador

text: The Pinzón brothers, seamen of the Tinto–Odiel participated in Columbus's undertaking. They also supported the project economically, supplying money from their personal fortunes.


title: Conquistador

text: Sponsors included governments, the king, viceroys, and local governors backed by rich men. The contribution of each individual conditioned the subsequent division of the booty, receiving a portion the pawn (lancero, piquero, alabardero, rodelero) and twice a man on horseback (caballero) owner of a horse. Sometimes part of the booty consisted of women and/or slaves. Even the dogs, important weapons of war in their own right, were in some cases rewarded. The division of the booty produced conflicts, such as the one between Pizarro and Almagro.


title: Conquistador

text: Though vastly outnumbered on foreign and unknown territory, Conquistadors had several military advantages over the native peoples they conquered. Through the long conflict of the Reconquista, The Spanish and Portuguese belonged to a more militarily advanced civilization with better military strategy, techniques, tools, a few number of crude fire arms, artillery, iron, steel and domesticated animals. Horses and mules carried them, pigs fed them and dogs fought for them. The indigenous peoples had the advantage of established settlements, determination to remain independent and large numerical superiority. European diseases and divide and conquer tactics contributed to the defeat of the native populations.


title: Conquistador

text: In the Iberian peninsula, in a situation of constant conflict, warfare and daily life were strongly interlinked. Small, lightly equipped armies were maintained at all times. The state of war continued intermittently for centuries and created a very warlike culture in Iberia that forged the Conquistadors.


title: Conquistador

text: Another factor was the ability of the conquistadors to manipulate the political situation between indigenous peoples and make alliances against larger empires. To beat the Inca civilization, they supported one side of a civil war. The Spanish overthrew the Aztec civilization by allying with natives who had been subjugated by more powerful neighbouring tribes and kingdoms. These tactics had been used by the Spanish, for example, in the Granada War, the conquest of the Canary Islands and conquest of Navarre. Throughout the conquest, the indigenous people greatly outnumbered the conquistadors; the conquistador troops never exceeded 2% of the native population. The army with which Hernán Cortés besieged Tenochtitlan was composed of 200,000 soldiers, of which fewer than 1% were Spaniards.


title: Conquistador

text: The Europeans practiced war within the terms and laws of their concept of a "just war". While Spanish soldiers went to the battlefield to kill their enemies, the Aztecs and Maya captured their enemies for use as sacrificial victims to their gods—a process called "flower war" by Spanish historians.


title: Conquistador

text: In traditional cultures of the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and hunter-gatherer societies the warfare was mostly 'endemic', long duration, low intensity, usually evolving into almost a ritualized form. By contrast, Europe had moved to 'sporadic' warfare in the Middle Ages due to the availability of professionally mercenary armies. When Italy was ransacked by French and Spanish Armies in the early 1500s, most Italian states were easily defeated by armies practicing sporadic-warfare. Aztec and other native peoples practiced an endemic system of warfare as well, and so were easily defeated by Spanish and Portuguese sporadic-warfare armies in the early 1500s.


title: Conquistador

text: Spanish and Portuguese forces were capable of quickly moving long distances in foreign land, allowing for speed of maneuver to catch outnumbering forces by surprise. Wars were mainly between clans, expelling intruders. On land, these wars combined some European methods with techniques from Muslim bandits in Al-Andalus. These tactics consisted of small groups who attempted to catch their opponents by surprise, through an ambush.


title: Conquistador

text: In Mombasa, Vasco da Gama resorted to attacking Arab merchant ships, which were generally unarmed trading vessels without heavy cannons.


title: Conquistador

text: Spanish conquistadors in the Americas made extensive use of swords, pikes, and crossbows, with arquebuses becoming widespread only from the 1570s. A scarcity of firearms did not prevent conquistadors to pioneer the use of mounted arquebusiers, an early form of dragoon. In the 1540s Francisco de Carvajal's use of firearms in the Spanish civil war in Peru prefigured the volley fire technique that developed in Europe many decades after.


title: Conquistador

text: Animals were another important factor for Spanish triumph. On the one hand, the introduction of the horse and other domesticated pack animals allowed them greater mobility unknown to the Indian cultures. However, in the mountains and jungles, the Spaniards were less able to use narrow Amerindian roads and bridges made for pedestrian traffic, which were sometimes no wider than a few feet. In places such as Argentina, New Mexico and California, the indigenous people learned horsemanship, cattle raising, and sheep herding. The use of the new techniques by indigenous groups later became a disputed factor in native resistance to the colonial and American governments.


title: Conquistador

text: The Spaniards were also skilled at breeding dogs for war, hunting and protection. The mastiffs, Spanish war dogs, and sheep dogs they used in battle were effective as a psychological weapon against the natives, who, in many cases, had never seen domesticated dogs. Although some indigenous peoples did have domestic dogs during the conquest of the Americas, Spanish conquistadors used Spanish Mastiffs and other Molossers in battle against the Taíno, Aztecs, and Maya. These specially trained dogs were feared because of their strength and ferocity. The strongest big breeds of broad-mouthed dogs were specifically trained for battle. These war dogs were used against barely clothed troops. They were armoured dogs trained to kill and disembowel.


title: Conquistador

text: The most famous of these dogs of war was a mascot of Ponce de Leon called "Becerrillo", the first European dog known to reach North America; another famous dog called "Leoncico", the son of "Becerillo", and the first European dog known to see the Pacific Ocean, was a mascot of Vasco Núñez de Balboa and accompanied him on several expeditions.


title: Conquistador

text: The successive expeditions and experience of the Spanish and Portuguese pilots led to a rapid evolution of European nautical science.


title: Conquistador

text: In the thirteenth century they were guided by the sun position. For celestial navigation like other Europeans, they used Greek tools, like the astrolabe and quadrant, which they made easier and simpler. They also created the cross-staff, or "cane of Jacob", for measuring at sea the height of the sun and other stars. The Southern Cross became a reference upon the arrival of João de Santarém and Pedro Escobar in the Southern hemisphere in 1471, starting its use in celestial navigation. The results varied throughout the year, which required corrections. To address this the Portuguese used the astronomical tables (Ephemeris), a precious tool for oceanic navigation, which spread widely in the fifteenth century. These tables revolutionized navigation, enabling latitude calculations. The tables of the Almanach Perpetuum, by astronomer Abraham Zacuto, published in Leiria in 1496, were used along with its improved astrolabe, by Vasco da Gama and Pedro Alvares Cabral.


title: Conquistador

text: The ship that truly launched the first phase of the discoveries along the African coast was the Portuguese caravel. Iberians quickly adopted it for their merchant navy. It was a development based on African fishing boats. They were agile and easier to navigate, with a tonnage of 50 to 160 tons and one to three masts, with lateen triangular sails allowing luffing. The caravel particularly benefited from a greater capacity to tack. The limited capacity for cargo and crew were their main drawbacks, but have not hindered its success. Limited crew and cargo space was acceptable, initially, because as exploratory ships, their "cargo" was what was in the explorer's discoveries about a new territory, which only took up the space of one person. Among the famous caravels are "Berrio" and "Caravela Annunciation". Columbus also used them in his travels.


title: Conquistador

text: Long oceanic voyages led to larger ships. "Nau" was the Portuguese archaic synonym for any large ship, primarily merchant ships. Due to the piracy that plagued the coasts, they began to be used in the navy and were provided with cannon windows, which led to the classification of "naus" according to the power of its artillery. The carrack or nau was a three- or four-masted ship. It had a high rounded stern with large aftcastle, forecastle and bowsprit at the stem. It was first used by the Portuguese, and later by the Spanish. They were also adapted to the increasing maritime trade. They grew from 200 tons capacity in the 15th century to 500. In the 16th century they usually had two decks, stern castles fore and aft, two to four masts with overlapping sails. In India travels in the sixteenth century used carracks, large merchant ships with a high edge and three masts with square sails, that reached 2,000 tons.


title: Conquistador

text: Besides coastal exploration, Portuguese ships also made trips further out to gather meteorological and oceanographic information. These voyages revealed the archipelagos of Bissagos Islands where the Portuguese were defeated by native people in 1535, Madeira, the Azores, Cape Verde, Sao Tome, Trindade and Martim Vaz, Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago, Fernando de Noronha, Corisco, Elobey Grande, Elobey Chico Annobón Island, Ascension Island, Bioko Island, Falkland Islands, Príncipe Island, Saint Helena Island, Tristan da Cunha Island and Sargasso Sea.


title: Conquistador

text: The knowledge of wind patterns and currents, the trade winds and the oceanic gyres in the Atlantic, and the determination of latitude led to the discovery of the best ocean route back from Africa: crossing the Central Atlantic to the Azores, using the winds and currents that spin clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere because of atmospheric circulation and the effect of Coriolis, facilitating the way to Lisbon and thus enabling the Portuguese to venture farther from shore, a manoeuvre that became known as the ""volta do mar"" ("return of the sea"). In 1565, the application of this principle in the Pacific Ocean led the Spanish discovering the Manila galleon trade route.


title: Conquistador

text: In 1339 Angelino Dulcert of Majorca produced the portolan chart map. Evidently drawing from the information provided in 1336 by Lanceloto Malocello sponsored by King Dinis of Portugal. It showed Lanzarote island, named "Insula de Lanzarotus Marocelus" and marked by a Genoese shield, as well as the island of "Forte Vetura" (Fuerteventura) and "Vegi Mari" (Lobos), although Dulcert also included some imaginary islands himself, notably Saint Brendan's Island, and three islands he names "Primaria", "Capraria" and "Canaria".


title: Conquistador

text: Mestre Jacome was a Majorcan cartographer induced by Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator to move to Portugal in the 1420s to train Portuguese map-makers in Majorcan-style cartography. 'Jacome of Majorca' is even sometimes described as the head of Henry's observatory and "school" at Sagres.


title: Conquistador

text: It is thought that Jehuda Cresques, son of Jewish cartographer Abraham Cresques of Palma in Majorca, and Italian-Majorcan Angelino Dulcert were cartographers at the service of Prince Henry. Majorca had many skilled Jewish cartographers. However, the oldest signed Portuguese sea chart is a Portolan made by Pedro Reinel in 1485 representing the Western Europe and parts of Africa, reflecting the explorations made by Diogo Cão. Reinel was also author of the first nautical chart known with an indication of latitudes in 1504 and the first representation of a wind rose.


title: Conquistador

text: With his son, cartographer Jorge Reinel and Lopo Homem, they participated in the making of the atlas known as "Lopo Homem-Reinés Atlas" or "Miller Atlas", in 1519. They were considered the best cartographers of their time. Emperor Charles V wanted them to work for him. In 1517 King Manuel I of Portugal handed Lopo Homem a charter giving him the privilege to certify and amend all compass needles in vessels.


title: Conquistador

text: The third phase of nautical cartography was characterized by the abandonment of Ptolemy's representation of the East and more accuracy in the representation of lands and continents. Fernão Vaz Dourado (Goa ≈1520 – ≈1580), produced work of extraordinary quality and beauty, giving him a reputation as one of the best cartographers of the time. Many of his charts are large scale.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: The battle of Kharkiv was a military engagement that took place from February to May 2022 in and around the city of Kharkiv in Ukraine, as part of the northeastern Ukraine offensive and eastern Ukraine offensive during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Kharkiv, located just south of the Russia–Ukraine border and a predominately Russian-speaking city, is the second-largest city in Ukraine and was considered a major target for the Russian military early in the invasion.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: By 13 May, Ukrainian forces pushed Russian units attempting to encircle the city back towards the Russian border. Additionally, it was reported that Russia had withdrawn units from the area. The Institute for the Study of War opined that Ukraine had "likely won the battle of Kharkiv". However, bombardment continued, and by 20 May, Russian forces were again shelling Kharkiv city. As a result of the subsequent counteroffensive in the Kharkiv Oblast, Russian forces located close to the city were pushed back, resulting in significantly reduced pressure on Kharkiv.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 12 June, Amnesty International claimed it found the evidence of widespread use of widely-banned cluster munitions by Russia, such as 9N210/9N235 cluster bombs, and "scatterable" munitions that eject small mines that explode later in timed intervals. Four months after the battle, Ukraine launched a major counteroffensive in September to recapture territories that were still under Russian control in Kharkiv Oblast.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 24 February, Russian forces amassed in Belgorod crossed the border and began advancing towards Kharkiv, meeting Ukrainian resistance. Pavlo Fedosenko, commander of the 92nd Mechanized Brigade, noted that explosions were heard outside his military unit at 4 a.m. The Russian artillery fired barrages at the city, killing a young boy.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: By 25 February, fierce fighting had broken out in the northern suburbs of the city, near the village of Tsyrkuny, where Ukrainian forces were able to hold against Russian forces.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 26 February, Oleh Synyehubov, the Governor of Kharkiv Oblast, claimed that the entire city remained under Ukrainian control. American officials reported that the heaviest fighting of the entire conflict was occurring at Kharkiv.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: In the early morning of 27 February, Russian forces destroyed a gas pipeline in Kharkiv. Later in the morning, Russian forces entered Kharkiv, with Synyehubov reporting that heavy fighting was occurring within the city, and Ministry of Internal Affairs advisor Anton Herashchenko claiming street fighting was underway in the city centre. Fedosenko recounted that “Everyone was fighting for Kharkiv: both the military and civilians. Units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Territorial Defense, the National Guard, the police, and volunteers. The enemy was being beaten literally on every street.” Russian forces also tried to take the city from the west by breaking through on a road going through the woods at Pisochyn, but Fedosenko was notified of this and ordered a counterattack, which halted the Russian advance.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: Russian Ministry of Defence spokesman Igor Konashenkov later claimed that Russian forces had secured the surrender of the Ukrainian 302nd Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment and captured 471 Ukrainian soldiers, a claim that Ukrainian officials denied. Ukrainian officials claimed that their forces had destroyed half of Russian military vehicles that had advanced into Kharkiv, including at least 6 GAZ Tigr-Ms.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: By the afternoon of 27 February, Synyehubov reported that Ukrainian forces had regained full control of the city. He added that dozens of Russian soldiers had surrendered. Fedosenko stated that the Ukrainian forces “drove the Russians out of the city, dug in and that's it.”


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 28 February, Herashchenko claimed that Russian rocket strikes on the city had killed dozens of civilians, while Synyehubov reported that eleven civilians were killed and dozens wounded, and Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of Kharkiv, reporting that nine civilians were killed and 37 were wounded. One of those killed was a 25-year-old student from Algeria, who was killed by a Russian sniper.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: Later on 28 February, Terekhov reported that Russian forces were beginning to destroy electrical substations in Kharkiv, resulting in some areas of the city being disconnected from power, heating and water. He also added that 87 homes had been damaged in Russian shelling. It was also reported that the Malyshev Factory had been destroyed by Russian shelling.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: Later on 28 February, Human Rights Watch stated that Russian forces used cluster bombs in the Industrialnyi, Saltivskyi and Shevchenkivskyi districts of the city. Human Rights Watch noted that the use of cluster bombs is prohibited by the 2010 Convention on Cluster Munitions and that their use "might constitute a war crime", due to the threat they pose to civilians.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On the morning of 1 March, a Russian 3M54-1 Kalibr missile struck Freedom Square in central Kharkiv, detonating in front of the Kharkiv Oblast administrative building. The Slovene consulate was destroyed in the blast. An opera house and a concert hall were also damaged. At least 24 people were wounded and 29 were killed, according to the regional administration.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: The Biathlon Federation of Ukraine later reported that one of the Ukrainian soldiers killed in Kharkiv on 1 March was Yevgeny Malyshev, a biathlete and former member of the Ukrainian national team.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: Later on 1 March, it was reported that an 21-year-old Indian student studying at Kharkiv National Medical University had been killed during Russian shelling. The student was from the village of Chalageri in Karnataka. According to the local Indian student coordinator, he was killed by an airstrike in the morning while he stood in a line-up to buy groceries. Indian authorities later announced they had evacuated all Indian nationals from Kyiv as part of a wider operation. Of the 8,000 Indian students that were still in Ukraine on 1 March, around half were located in Kharkiv and Sumy. A member of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, Mayna Fenina, was also killed during shelling on 1 March.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 2 March, Synyehubov stated that at least 21 people had been killed and 112 wounded in the previous 24 hours. Russian paratroopers landed in Kharkiv and conducted a raid on a Ukrainian military hospital after an aerial assault on the city, leading to heavy clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces. A local official later claimed that Ukrainian forces still controlled the hospital.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: The Kharkiv Police headquarters, a military academy and the National University of Kharkiv were damaged by Russian shelling during the morning. Several residential areas were also struck by Russian missiles. Russian missiles later struck Freedom Square again, damaging the Kharkiv City Council building and the Derzhprom, in addition to some high-rise buildings.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On the night of 2 March, two missiles struck the headquarters of the Kharkiv Territorial Defence Forces. The Assumption Cathedral, which was being used as a shelter by civilians, was also damaged, along with the Catholic Church of St. Anthony. CNN released a report claiming that of all the 16 locations in Kharkiv targeted by Russian shelling that week; only three were non-civilian areas.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: The Security Service of Ukraine stated on 6 March that Russian BM-21 Grads were shelling the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, which houses a nuclear research facility, and warned it could lead to a large-scale ecological disaster. The International Atomic Energy Agency stated the next day that the nuclear research facility had reportedly been damaged but there was no radiation leak. Local emergency officials stated that at least eight civilians had been killed in the shelling on the city overnight. The Azerbaijani consulate in the city was meanwhile severely damaged and the Albanian consulate was demolished.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 7 March, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence announced that Ukrainian forces had killed Russian Major General Vitaly Gerasimov, a deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army. This claim later turned out to be untrue, as Gerasimov received the Order of Alexander Nevsky on May 23. Other Russian officers were also killed in the attack. Russian soldiers also killed two civilian volunteers at the Feldman Ecopark as they entered the animals' enclosure to feed them.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 8 March, Synyehubov stated that more than 600,000 civilians had been evacuated from the city via railways. Ukrainian officials stated that all of Kharkiv was under their control, and that aside from some shelling on the outskirts of the city, no Russian offensive action was being taken.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 10 March, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine stated that four people, including two children, were killed by Russian shelling in Kharkiv. Russian shelling also destroyed a shopping mall in the centre of the city. Later, Herashchenko claimed that a Russian airstrike had struck the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 14 March, Russian shelling hit a residential area, killing two civilians and wounding one. The following day, Synyehubov claimed that the city had been shelled 65 times on 14 March, killing a civilian, and that 600 residential buildings had been destroyed in Kharkiv. The following day, Ukraine reported that they had killed Igor Nikolaev, commander of the 252nd Motorized Rifle Brigade, along with around 30% of the regiment's personnel and equipment.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 16 March, Ukrainian officials claimed that three civilians were killed and five were wounded when Russian forces shelled a market.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 18 March, Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office reported shelling of residential buildings in Slobidskyi and Moskovskyi districts of the city. In addition, the building of the Institute of State Administration of the National Academy for Public Administration was partially ruined. Russian shelling of Saltivka killed 96-year-old Boris Romanchenko, who survived four Nazi concentration camps and was engaged in preserving the memory of the crimes of Nazism.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 19 March, Oleh Synyehubov, the appointed head of the Kharkiv Regional Civil-Military Administration (HOVA), stated that the northern suburbs of Kharkiv had been under constant bombardment and that the city centre was being struck by shells and rockets. He claimed that numerous administrative and cultural buildings had been damaged and destroyed. He also stated that Ukrainian forces had counter-attacked, pushing Russian forces away from the outskirts of the city.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 24 March, a Russian airstrike hit a Nova Poshta office, killing six civilians and injuring at least 15. On 26 March, Russian shells damaged a monument at the Drobytsky Yar Holocaust memorial.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 28 March, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said that about 30% of city's residents had left Kharkiv since the onset of the war. Head of HOVA, military governor Oleh Synyehubov, reported that Russians had again hit city neighbourhoods with cluster munitions. He also claimed that in several directions Ukrainian fighters had counterattacked and that they had cleared the enemy from Mala Rohan and Vilkhivka.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: Amid the heightened Russian shelling of Kharkiv on 31 March 2022, Russian authorities attributed an explosion at an oil supply depot approximately north of the border in Belgorod within Russia to an attack by two Ukrainian Mi-24 military helicopters. Meanwhile, the Russians claimed to have killed, on the same day, more than 100 "extremists and mercenaries" from Western countries in Kharkiv with a high-precision Iskander missile strike on a defense base.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 2 April, according to Synyehubov, the Russians were bypassing Izyum to continue to the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 3 April 2022, the Ukrainian government stated that two Russian soldiers had been killed and 28 others hospitalised after Ukrainian civilians handed out poisoned cakes to Russian soldiers of the Russian 3rd Motor Rifle Division in Kharkiv.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: Despite limited Russian withdrawals to the north of the city and the Ukrainian forcing of the road to Chuhuiv, on 4 April, the Ukraine's defence ministry warned that the invaders were preparing to launch a new assault to take the city from the east.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 17 April, Synyehubov claimed on Telegram that the villages of Bazaliyivka, Lebyazhe and part of Kutuzivka were retaken in a Ukrainian counteroffensive, and that forces had advanced to near the village of Mala Rohan. In addition, he stated that Ukrainian forces had destroyed five tanks and ten armored vehicles "by jet fire" and had killed or captured 100 Russian soldiers.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 27 April, Kharkiv remained partially encircled. On 29 April, Synyehubov said that since the war started, more than 2,000 buildings in the city were either damaged or destroyed. He also said that on 28 April, due to almost non-stop shelling, five civilians were killed. Also on 29 April it was reported that the village Ruska Lozova, near Kharkiv, was retaken by Ukraine.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: In May 2022, Ukrainian forces began a counter-offensive to drive Russian forces out of the city and towards the international border. By 12 May, the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense reported that Russia had withdrawn units from the Kharkiv area.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 2 May, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported that Ukraine retook the village of Staryi Saltiv, 40 km east of the city.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 6 May, the ISW described a Ukrainian counteroffensive "along a broad arc" north and east of Kharkiv, reporting that Ukraine had recaptured "several villages," including Tsyrkuny, Peremoha and part of Cherkaski Tyshky. The ISW speculated that Ukraine "may successfully push Russian forces out of artillery range of Kharkiv in the coming days." On 7 May, Ukrainian forces reported that five villages northeast of Kharkiv had been retaken. Quoting a Ukrainian official, "The New York Times" said that the battle for Kharkiv was not over, but that at the moment, Ukraine was dominating. The advance north and east, made mainly by the 92nd Mechanized Brigade and the 93rd Mechanized Brigade, forced the Russian forces to retreat across the Donets river while blowing the bridges behind them.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 10 May, Ukrainian forces claimed to have recaptured four settlements. This counteroffensive, if successful, could bring Ukrainian forces within several kilometres of the Russian border.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: By 13 May, the ISW opined that Ukraine had "likely won the battle of Kharkiv". The Mayor of Kharkiv said to the BBC: "There was no shelling in the city for the last five days. There was only one attempt from Russians to hit the city with a missile rocket near Kharkiv airport, but the missile was eliminated by Ukrainian Air Defence."


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: After the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Russian forces were driven back to defensive positions, some of which were within miles of the Russia-Ukraine international border. Despite this, they continued to shell various Kharkiv suburbs, as well as the city proper, killing numerous civilians and wounding dozens more.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 20 May, Russian forces again shelled several villages in the Kharkiv district, including the city of Kharkiv itself, using BM-21 Grad, BM-27 Uragan and BM-30 Smerch multiple rocket launchers.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 21 May, in a statement the Ukrainian police confirmed the recovery of the bodies of six military officials, including a Russian colonel, in the settlement of Zolochiv.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 20 June, new rocket strikes destroyed Housing and Communal College of Kharkiv National University of Urban Economy and a depot of Kharkiv Metro. On 24 June, sports complex of Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute was destroyed.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 3 July, the Russian defence ministry claimed an airstrike struck a forward position of the Territorial Defence Forces' 127th Separate Brigade, neutralizing 100 Ukrainian troops and destroying "15 units of military equipment." This claim was not independently verified at the time.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 4 July, new missile strike ruined a gymnasium. On 6 July, Russian shelling destroyed one of the buildings at Kharkiv National Pedagogical University and a former manor house and architectural monument built in 1832.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 20 July, at least three people were killed in the morning as a result of a Russian missile attack on Kharkiv, including a 13-year-old boy.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 17–18 August, 25 people were killed and several dozen were injured in a missile strike on two dormitories. Also on 18 August, new Russian strike destroyed Palace of culture of railroad workers.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: 19 August was proclaimed a day of mourning in the city for people killed in the preceding days. The same day, new rocket strike destroyed one of buildings of Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute, killing one person.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: Between 6-11 September alone, the Ukrainians claimed to have killed 2,850 Russian soldiers and to have destroyed up to 590 pieces of military equipment, including 86 tanks, 158 armoured combat vehicles, 106 artillery systems, 159 vehicles and 46 other equipment systems. According to Oryx, they also captured an additional 129 pieces of military equipment.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 11 September, Russian army shelled infrastructure facilities in central and eastern Ukraine, including Kharkiv TEC-5 and Zmiiv thermal power station in Kharkiv region. This caused extensive power outages in 5 regions of Ukraine and is thought to be the response to the Ukrainian counteroffensive.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: During the battle, at least 606 civilians were killed due to Russian shelling and fighting for the city. Due to the fog of war, it is impossible to tabulate total casualties for the Battle of Kharkiv. Additionally, various skirmishes around Kharkiv's suburbs have led to casualties for both the Russian and Ukrainian Armed Forces.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: Like the civilian death toll, the true number of military casualties is impossible to estimate due to the fog of war and opposing governments' inflation or deflation of numbers in order to boost morale.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: During the course of the battle, the Ukrainian government claimed to have killed over 2,400 Russian troops. On 3 March, Ukraine claimed to have destroyed a 120-man unit of airborne soldiers. On 26 March, Ukraine claimed to have killed 645 soldiers from a single unit, with only three men surviving, of whom two were wounded. On 29 March, Ukraine claimed to have completely destroyed 2 battalion tactical groups from the 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade, and inflicted casualties on others, killing up to 1,500 soldiers. On 30 May, the Ukrainians repatriated the bodies of 62 Russian servicemen in the Kharkiv Region.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: The Russian government, on the other hand, gave very sparse updates as to Ukrainian casualties but claimed to have killed up to 276 Ukrainian fighters by 2 April, including 130 mercenaries, although this number is likely much higher due to the irregularity of Russian updates.


title: Battle of Kharkiv (2022)

text: On 13 June, Amnesty International published a report saying that Russian forces had carried out a "relentless campaign of indiscriminate bombardments" in the battle, including the use of banned cluster munitions, scatterable land mines, and Grad rockets. Amnesty stated that these attacks constituted war crimes and potentially represented deliberate targeting of civilians.


title: Royce Gracie

text: Royce Gracie (; born 12 December 1966) is a Brazilian retired professional mixed martial artist, a UFC Hall of Famer, and a Gracie Jiu-Jitsu practitioner. A member of the Gracie family, he is considered to be one of the most influential figures in the history of mixed martial arts (MMA). He also competed at PRIDE Fighting Championships, K-1's MMA events and at Bellator.


title: Royce Gracie

text: Gracie gained fame for his success in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Between 1993 and 1994, he was the tournament winner of "UFC 1", "UFC 2" and "UFC 4", which at the time was an openweight single-elimination tournament with minimal rules. He was also known for his rivalry with Ken Shamrock, whom he beat in "UFC 1" and then fought to a draw in the Superfight Championship rematch at "UFC 5". Royce would later compete in PRIDE Fighting Championships, where he is most remembered for his 90-minute bout against Kazushi Sakuraba in 2000, and a controversial "Judo vs Jiu-Jitsu" mixed rules match against olympic gold-medalist in Judo Hidehiko Yoshida at "Pride Shockwave" in 2002.


title: Royce Gracie

text: Royce Gracie popularized Gracie Jiu-Jitsu (also known as Brazilian jiu-jitsu) and revolutionized mixed martial arts with his results contributing to the movement towards grappling and ground fighting in the sport. In 2008, Gracie was ranked by "Inside MMA" as the third-greatest mixed martial arts fighter of all time.


title: Royce Gracie

text: Royce Gracie was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1966. One of the nine sons of jiu-jitsu grandmaster Hélio Gracie, having learned the art from his father since his childhood. He had his first competition at age 8 and started teaching classes when he was 14 years old. When he was 17, Royce was awarded a black belt by his father, Hélio. A few months later he and his brothers Royler and Rickson Gracie moved to Torrance, California to live with his older brother Rorion Gracie, who had moved there in 1978 and had established Gracie Academy.


title: Royce Gracie

text: The Gracie brothers in the United States continued the family's tradition of the "Gracie Challenge", in which they challenged other martial artists to a no-holds-barred Vale Tudo match in their gym in order to prove the superiority of Gracie jiu-jitsu. Rorion would later edit footage from the Gracie Challenge fights into a single documentary series known as "Gracie in Action", with some footage featuring Royce's fights. The "Gracie in Action" tapes inspired Art Davie to create the UFC.


title: Royce Gracie

text: The Ultimate Fighting Championship was founded in 1993 by Rorion Gracie, business executive Art Davie, and the Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG). The premise of the event was doing a eight-man openweight single-elimination tournament, with minimal rules, from fighters representing different martial arts, in order to find the most effective and strongest fighting style. While Davie and the SEG were interested in doing an event with violent and exciting Vale Tudo fights similar to what they had seen on the "Gracie in Action" tapes, Rorion was interested in promoting his family's own Jiu-Jitsu style by defeating larger and stronger opponents from more well-known martial arts. Rorion said he picked Royce to represent the family's art because of his skinnier and smaller frame, to show how a small person can defeat a bigger opponent using jiu-jitsu.


title: Royce Gracie

text: Gracie entered the tournament wearing his now iconic Brazilian jiu-jitsu gi. In his first match, Gracie defeated journeyman boxer Art Jimmerson. He tackled him to the ground using a "baiana" (morote-gari or double-leg) and obtained the dominant "mounted" position. Mounted and with only one free arm, Jimmerson conceded defeat.


title: Royce Gracie

text: In the semi-finals, Gracie fought against shootfighter and King of Pancrase Ken Shamrock. This was Royce's most difficult match, as Shamrock had grappling experience (having caught Patrick Smith in a heel hook in a previous match). Gracie started the round by attempting a double-leg, which was defended by Shamrock with a sprawl, and Shamrock attempted to stand up back to his feet. Gracie then responded by pulling Shamrock to his guard and started to do small kicks into Shamrock's kidneys, but he got out from his guard and attempted to pull Gracie into a heel hook, as he had done with Patrick Smith similarly before. The Brazilian defended by wrapping his gi around Shamrock's arm, and when the latter sat back, it pulled Gracie on top of him. He then proceeded to take Shamrock's back and used his own gi to secure a rear naked choke. Shamrock later stated it was a gi choke, using the cloth around his neck. Shamrock tapped out to Gracie's choke, but the referee did not see the tap and ordered both fighters to continue the match. Shamrock then admitted defeat to the referee, saying it would not be fair, and Royce was declared the bout's victor, with both fighters exchanging a handshake after some taunting.


title: Royce Gracie

text: Gracie fought in the finals against karate Kyokushin practitioner and savate world champion Gerard Gordeau. Gracie managed to take his opponent to the ground and secure a rear choke, winning the bout. During the fight, Gordeau bit Gracie's ear, breaking one of the few rules of the event. Gracie retaliated by holding the choke after Gordeau had tapped out, with the Dutchman tapping in panic before they were separated by a referee. Royce was then declared the "Ultimate Fighting Champion" and was awarded $50,000 in prize money.


title: Royce Gracie

text: After Gracie defeated Ken Shamrock in the first UFC event, a rivalry developed between the fighters. Shamrock especially wanted a rematch as, according to him, Gracie had used the gi to favor his grappling while he had not been allowed to use wrestling shoes by the promoters, which he considered an unfair advantage to Gracie. Shamrock nonetheless conceded that he had underestimated his opponent.


title: Royce Gracie

text: A rematch between Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock failed to materialize at the UFC 2, as Shamrock had broken his hand in training and at UFC 3 Gracie withdrew from the competition due to exhaustion (resulting in Shamrock withdrawing from the event too). To solve the problem of the tournament format's unpredictability, a "superfight" in which Gracie and Ken Shamrock would fight in a bout outside the main tournament was scheduled for the "UFC 5".


title: Royce Gracie

text: Gracie returned to defend his title four months later at UFC 2, this tournament would have sixteen fighters and he would have to defeat four opponents in order to become the champion. Gracie began his defense of the title by submitting Japanese Karatedo Daido Juku and Kyokushin karateka Minoki Ichihara after a five-minute bout, his longest yet. Advancing into the quarterfinals, Royce Gracie fought Five Animals Kung Fu practitioner and future Pancrase veteran Jason DeLucia, whom he had already fought and defeated before in one of the "Gracie Challenges" in 1991. Gracie submitted DeLucia via armbar just over a minute into the bout. Gracie then submitted 250-lb Judo and Taekwondo black belt Remco Pardoel with a lapel choke, and arrived at the finals against kickboxer Patrick Smith, who had previously participated at UFC 1. Showing his superior grappling skills, Gracie easily took Smith to the ground and won the fight via submission to punches.


title: Royce Gracie

text: Royce Gracie entered UFC 3 now as twice-champion and as the favorite to win. The amount of fighters was scaled down back to eight like the first edition. Royce was matched up in the first round against Kimo Leopoldo, a representative of Taekwondo and former high school wrestler. Leopoldo utilized his wrestling background to dominate the grappling exchanges, denying several of Gracie's takedowns and even took his back. As both men began to tire, Gracie held down Leopoldo by grabbing onto his pony tail, eventually submitting him with an armbar at 4:40 of round one. However, he withdrew from his next fight with Gōjū-ryū karateka Harold Howard before it began due to exhaustion and dehydration. Royce entered into the ring and threw in the towel. This was the first event which Gracie did not win.


title: Royce Gracie

text: Gracie began the UFC 4 by submitting 51-year-old Karateka and Kung fu film actor Ron van Clief in the opening round with a rear-naked choke near the four-minute mark. In the semi-finals, he fought American Kenpo Karate specialist Keith Hackney, who was able to defend Gracie's takedowns for four minutes until he was submitted by an armbar.


title: Royce Gracie

text: Gracie's final tournament bout was against Dan Severn, a former Pan American freestyle wrestling gold medalist. Severn dominated the fight, securing takedowns and maintaining top control throwing ground and pound for nearly fifteen minutes. However Gracie eventually managed to secure a triangle choke for the submission victory at 15:49 of round one. The match extended beyond the pay-per-view time slot and viewers, who missed the end of the fight, demanded their money back.


title: Royce Gracie

text: Gracie and Shamrock returned for UFC 5, they were both set to headline the UFC's first "superfight", a special outside the main tournament in order to rematch Gracie and Shamrock, as they would have no prior damage from a previous fight. The winner would win a special belt and become the inaugural UFC Superfight Champion. Time limits were re-introduced into the sport in 1995 due pay-per-view limits after the UFC 4 debacle and the fighters were only told a few hours before the event, upsetting both competitors.


title: Royce Gracie

text: At the start of round one, Shamrock immediately scored a takedown with Gracie pulling guard. The majority of the contest consisted of Shamrock in top position defending Gracie's submission game, occasionally landing ground and pound. After nearly thirty minutes of control time for Shamrock, the contest was given overtime and restarted on the feet. At the beginning of the overtime, Shamrock connected with a punch that led to swelling on Gracie's eye, with Gracie immediately pulling guard. After another uneventful few minutes, the contest was declared a draw.


title: Royce Gracie

text: The draw sparked much debate and controversy as to who would have won the fight had judges determined the outcome, or had there been no time limits, as by the end of the fight Gracie's right eye was swollen shut. Had there been ringside judges, UFC matchmaker Art Davie believes that Shamrock would have been declared the winner. The fight was poorly received by critics and the live audience, due to the lack of action from both competitors.


title: Royce Gracie

text: After the fight, Gracie left the UFC along with his brother Rorion, who sold his shares of the event. According to Rorion, they left the organization due a conflict of interest because of the time limits introduced after UFC 4 and future plans to introduce judges, and weight classes.


title: Royce Gracie

text: At UFC 45 in November 2003, at the ten-year anniversary of the UFC, Shamrock and Gracie became the first inductees into the UFC Hall of Fame. UFC President Dana White said;


title: Royce Gracie

text: Throughout his UFC days, Royce frequently challenged well-known fighters—though usually to no avail—to "fight to the finish, any place and any time." Many big-name sportspeople, including Mike Tyson (who was serving a prison term at the time) received a note several times in an open letter fashion, usually published by "Black Belt Magazine" in "The Ultimate Fighter" column.


title: Royce Gracie

text: Gracie was originally going to debut in PRIDE Fighting Championships in their 1998 PRIDE 2 event, where he would be pitted against fellow UFC champion Mark Kerr. The Gracie side demanded special rules without time limit or referee stoppage, which were accepted. However, Royce pulled out due to a back injury after the fight had been advertised.


title: Royce Gracie

text: The situation changed after PRIDE 8, when Royce's older brother Royler Gracie was defeated by Kazushi Sakuraba. Sakuraba dominated the match and won by technical submission. This was the first time in 50 years a Gracie had been defeated in a mixed martial arts fight and Sakuraba followed by a challenge to Rickson Gracie. In response, the Gracies argued that Royler's loss did not count as he had not conceded or tapped out, and the referee's stopping of the bout went against the special ruleset they had requested for the fight. Many pundits were also affirming that the Gracie pure-BJJ approach was not able to match a well-rounded cross-trainined fighter anymore. In response to that assertion, and in order to defeat Sakuraba in a rematch, the Gracies signed Royce up to PRIDE.


title: Royce Gracie

text: Royce Gracie's first event in PRIDE was in the "PRIDE Grand Prix 2000", an openweight tournament that would be divided into two events: the Opening Round, which consisted of the Round of 16 and the Finals which would happen three months later and consisted of the Quarter-Finals, Semi-Finals and Finals. The bouts in the Opening Round had their rules modified to have only one round of fifteen minutes. In the first round, he fought Japanese professional wrestler Nobuhiko Takada. Takada was a very popular wrestler who had headlined Pride 1 and Pride 4 against Royce's brother Rickson. After a largely uneventful fight, Gracie was declared the winner by unanimous decision and advanced to the Grand Prix Quarter-Finals.


title: Royce Gracie

text: Royce was then set to fight Kazushi Sakuraba in the Quarter-Finals at the PRIDE Grand Prix 2000 Finals. Sakuraba was a professional wrestler who derived his foundation in submissions from catch wrestling and shoot wrestling. He had defeated several opponents and become one of the first Japanese stars of PRIDE. As Royce entered the Grand Prix specially to fight Sakuraba, the Gracies demanded special rules for the fight: an unlimited number of 15-minute rounds, no judges, no referee stoppages, and wins could only come by knockout, submission or throwing in the towel. Sakuraba criticized the different ruleset, the Gracie's demands to fight under it and their demands for special treatment, but ended up agreeing to the challenge nonetheless.


title: Royce Gracie

text: The two battled for an hour and a half, after which Gracie began to fatigue, and could no longer stand due to a broken femur as a result of numerous leg kicks. The towel was thrown in and Sakuraba was declared the winner. Sakuraba went on to defeat other members of the Gracie family, including Renzo Gracie and Ryan Gracie, earning him the nickname "Gracie Hunter."


title: Royce Gracie

text: Gracie returned to PRIDE in 2002 to fight Japanese gold-medalist judoka Hidehiko Yoshida in a special "Judo vs. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu" special rules match, billed as a "rematch" of Masahiko Kimura vs. Hélio Gracie, which had happened 50 years earlier. The rules were that the fight would be contested in two 10-minute rounds and would be declared a draw if no result was achieved. Strikes to the head were disallowed, as it was any kind of strike if both opponents were on the ground. Lying on the mat or dropping down without touching the opponent would be banned as well. Both fighters would wear a keikogi as per their respective disciplines's preference. It happened at "Pride Shockwave" a co-production between PRIDE and K-1 kickboxing, intended to be a mega-event celebrating martial arts, with the event still having the largest live attendance in MMA history, drawing almost 91,000 fans (with some sources suggesting instead 71,000). Royce's father Hélio Gracie lit a ceremonial olympic torch along with MMA pioneer Antonio Inoki in the opening ceremony.


title: Royce Gracie

text: Royce started the fight pulling guard and attempting a heel hook and an armbar, with Hidehiko blocking them and coming back with a gi choke and an ankle lock attempt. Gracie pulled guard again, but Yoshida turned it into a daki age and sought the Kimura lock; then, when the Brazilian blocked the technique, Yoshida passed his guard and performed a mounted sode guruma jime. After a moment of inactivity, the referee Daisuke Noguchi stopped the match in the belief Royce was unconscious and gave victory to Yoshida.


title: Royce Gracie

text: Gracie immediately protested and footage of the fight was reviewed, which showed that Gracie's visible arm during the execution of the choke was limp and motionless. Gracie began to argue with Noguchi, the squabble soon resulted in him attacking the referee and it escalated into a full a brawl between the corners of the two fighters. Later backstage, the Gracies demanded it be turned into a no contest, and an immediate rematch be booked with different rules. If not, the Gracie family would never fight for PRIDE FC again. PRIDE, wanting to keep the Gracie family with them, accepted their demands.


title: Royce Gracie

text: Afterward, Gracie started fighting without a gi so that his opponents could not stall by holding onto it. The grudge match between Yoshida and Gracie took place at PRIDE's "Shockwave 2003" event on December 31, 2003. Gracie dominated Yoshida but, as the match had no judge per Gracie's request, the bout was declared a draw after two 10-minute rounds.


title: Royce Gracie

text: In September 2004 Pride had a disagreement with Gracie about his participation in the 2005 Pride Middleweight Grand Prix. Gracie had issues with the proposed opponents and rules (Grand Prix fights must have a winner and cannot end in a draw). He jumped to Fighting and Entertainment Group's K-1 organization. Pride sued Gracie for breaching his contract with them. The case was settled in December 2005, with Gracie issuing a public apology, blaming his actions on a misinterpretation of the contract by his manager.