Significant Historical Happenings By Year: 1500s.
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-1492-
§Columbus' discoveries.
-1493-
§Pope Alexander VI issues a bull dividing the world in half.
-1497-
§Cabot plants a flag at the foot of Sugarloaf Mountain, Cape Breton.
-1518-
§The Frenchman, Baron de Lery, landing cattle, attempts to settle Sable Island.
-1522-
§A French corsair off the cape of St. Vincent takes a Spanish ship sailing home from New Spain; the source of Spain's riches is thus discovered.
-1524-
§Gómez and Verrazzano make their voyages up the North American coast.
-1534-
§April 20, 1534; Jacques Cartier sails from St. Malo.
§May 27, 1534; Cartier enters the Strait of Belle Isle.
§July, 1534; Cartier is off Prince Edward Island.
§September 5th, 1534; Cartier and his men are back at St. Malo.
-1535-
§May 19th, 1535: Cartier sails from St. Malo for his second trip to the new World; this time with three ships and 110 men; this time they took 50 days to cross the Atlantic.
§Cartier over winters at Quebec.
-1536-
§July, 1536: Cartier is heading back to St. Malo.
-1541-
§Cartier is back at Quebec and overwinters once again.
-1542-
§Spring of 1542: Cartier returns back to France leaving his co-adventurer, Roberval, to spend the following winter (1542-3) at Quebec.
-1563-
§"Unsuccessful" (1583-65) Huguenot colony in Florida.
-1582-
§Richard Hakluyt publishes Divers Voyages which brings to the public's attention (to a greater extent) that discoveries are to be made by sailing over the great ocean to the west.
-1583-
§Sir Humphrey Gilbert (1537-83), the English Muscovy Company, the Squirrel and the Golden Hind, and an English expedition to Newfoundland.
-1584-
§Sir Walter Raleigh dispatches Captain Philip Amidas and Captain Arthur Barlow to America and Virginia is discovered.
-1585-
§April 9th, 1585: The English expedition under Grenville sails from Plymouth and there is established the short lived Roanoke Island settlement.
-1587-
§May of 1587: Another group of 117 English settlers arrived at Roanoke Island; no one knows what happened to them, presumably they perished.
-1593-
§The French king, Henry the IV, hithertofore a leader of the protestant forces, signs the Edict at Nantes. In the process, Henry formally professes himself to be a member of the Church of Rome.
-1598-
§Marquis de la Roche in an abortive attempt to colonize New France, on sighting Sable Island, dropped off 40 men from his small crowded boat with a view of going back to get them once his smaller crew had located a more likely spot in New France; a storm blew up and de la Roche, in a very wrecked condition, arrived back in France. Five years later, finally, somebody in France thought to go check, and, during September, 1603, 17 wretched survivors were found and returned to France.
-1599-
§The East India Company and Sir Thomas Smith.