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     Ponce De Leon is famous for founding Florida and giving it its name.  The flowers of profusion or the holiday Pascuia is how he named Florida. Ponce De Leon had permission to discover and set camp on the island of Bimini.  His ships sailed through the Bahamas and got to land near Saint Augustine in the Easter season of 1513 which led to the founding of Florida. As a young lad, he joined the Spanish soldiers to defeat the Moors of Granada, then he joined Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to America.
 

Hernando de Soto 
     Hernando de Soto, born about 1500, is the explorer credited with discovering the Mississippi River.  In 1537, he was named governor of Cuba and was allowed to conquer Florida.  He sailed from Spain on May 1539.  He  landed on the Florida coast near Tampa Bay.  In 1540-1541, his troops made camp at the Mississippi River for the winter.  In May 1541,the expedition crossed the Mississippi River.  De Soto and his men were perhaps the first Europeans to see the river inland.  The expedition crossed into Arkansas and made their winter camp near Ft. Smith.  They returned to Mississippi where De Soto died on May 21, 1542. 

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Francisco Coronado

     Francisco Coronado was born in 1510 and died in 1554.  He was a Spanish explorer of the American Southwest.  In 1538 he became governor of a town called New Galacia.  In 1540, he explored the area north of the Rio Grande. He moved forward to the Pueblos of the Zuni tribes.  Coronado was searching for the seven golden cities of Cibola and the money of Grande Quivira. When he reached Quivira, he found little wealth.  In 1542, Coronado returned to Mexico where his expedition was considered a failure, but is now considered as a great exploration.

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Hernando Cortes

     Hernan Cortes, one of the Spanish explorers of Mexico, was a child of low nobility.  He was born in 1458 in Medellin, Extremadura. Hernan Cortes had a wonderful education but left it to sail and seek fortune in the New World.  He went with Diego de Valazquez de Cuellar on an expedition to Cuba in 1519.
     Cortes explored the coast of Mexico, stopping at Velazquez, where he founded a city to organize his expeditions.  After hearing valuable information about the highlands, Cortes moved inland and made a peace treaty with the Indians of Tlaxcala, and Cortez began to call himself Quetzalcoatl.  The Tlaxcala’s believed he was their legendary ruler, Quetzalcoatl, who would return from the east. Montezuma II, the  Aztec ruler, was too mystified to make a resistance, and the Spaniards entered the Aztec capitol unopposed in November 1519. 
     Later Cortes went coastal to defeat a Spanish force ruled by Panfilo de Narvaez. When the dust settled, he  returned to see the Aztecs brutalized and in revolt against Alvarado, their lieutenant.  Forced to quit,the Spanish suffered heavy losses.  Cortes returned in 1521 to besiege Tenochtitlan.  It fell after three months because an epidemic had spread across the union.  Cortes’s conquest was completed whereas he had great help and support with land and money.  He died near Seville on Dec. 2, 1547.

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