Christopher Columbus

 Italian explorer sponsored by Spain to find safer and shorter passage to India

Vasco Nunez de Balboa

Spanish colonist who explored the Carribean coast

Ferdinand Magellan

Portugese explorer, tried to find an Atlantic-Pacific passage way

Conquistador

Solider-adventurers from Spain

Hernando Cortez

Conquistador, who conquered the Aztecs and built Mexico City

Moctezuma

 Aztec leader who was taken hostage by Cortes for influence, and later was killed

Plantation

large farms worked by laborers who lived on the property

Encomienda

Land grants that included the rights to tax Native Americans

Quetzalcoatl

Feathered god and founder of the Aztec society

Martin Luther

Founded the Lutheran Church, wrote the 95 Theses and nailed to the door of the church, and broke off with the Catholic church

King Henry VII

English ruler who set up the Church of Engalnd after breaking ties with Catholic Church for not being able to divorce his wife because she could not  produce a male heir

Mercantilism

A system that Spain used that required it's colonies to send 1/5 of it's gold back to the crown.

John Cabot

An Italian explorer

Jacques Cartier

 A Canadian hero, who discovered the modern day St. Lawrence River and Montreal

Henry Hudson

 A Dutch explorer who discovered New York and Quebec by the way of the Hudson River. His crew though mutinied against him and set him adrift to freeze

Sameul de Champlain

A French explorer who discovered the St. Lawrence river and set up French trading posts by Quebec

Courer de bois

"Runners of the woods", idependent traders who lived among the Indians

Jacques Marquette

Frenchman who discovered the Mississippi River, this was vital to the French

Amerigo Vespucci

 An Italian explorer who discovered America!