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The Bering Land Bridge that connected Alaska to Siberia allowed humans to cross over into the American continent, gradually filling it. This was thought to be the sole route taken to the American continent, but evidence of human life dating back to 14,000 years ago was found, meaning that some may have travelled by water even earlier.

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Hunter-gatherers in highland Mexico domesticated corn, which would serve as the foundations of large-scale, complex societies such as the emerging Aztec and Incan nation-states.

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Corn reaches the American Southwest, powerfully remolding the Pueblo people as they began creating intricate irrigation systems to water their cornfields. They dwelled in multi-storied, terraced buildings when the Spanish made contact with them later on.

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Maize and high-yielding strains of beans and squash reach the southeastern Atlantic seaboard region of North America, making possible the revolutionary the "three-sister" farming method that would sustain high population densities such as the Creek, Cherokee, and Choctaw peoples.

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Mysteriously, the ancient cultures that populated the lower Midwest and created settlements such as Cahokia began to fall into decline, perhaps due to prolonged drought.

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The Portuguese developed the caravel, which could sail more closely into the wind and would allow them to travel even further distances, especially along the African coast.

Printing presses were also introduced around this time.

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The kingdom of Spain became united, and were spurred to explore by a desire to prevail over their Portuguese neighbors.

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Columbus discovered the Americas accidently, having set out to find a more efficient route for trading with Asia.

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Columbus returns to Hispaniola (modern day Haiti and Dominican Republic) with 17 ships full of 1200 men as well as cattle, swine, and horses - all of which filled the continent over years of time

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Spain secures its claim to Columbus' discovery in the Treaty of Tordesillas, dividing the New World with Portugal.

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The English send Giovanni Caboto to explore the northeastern coast of America in attempts to rival the Spanish.

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The Iroquois in the northeastern woodlands, inspired by the legendary leader Hiawatha, created the Iroquois Confederacy. They developed the political and organizational skills to sustain a robust military alliance that allowed them to last for well over a century.

Simultaneously, Spain became the dominant exploring and colonizing force, with conquistadors fanning out across the Caribbean and mainland America.

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Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez Balboa discovers the Pacific Ocean

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Ferdinand Magellan started out of Spain with 5 tiny ships, went around the southernmost tip of South America, and although he was slain in the Philippines, one of his remaining vessels made it home in 1522. This marks the first circumnavigation of the globe.

Additionally, this is the year Hernan Cortes set sail from Cuba with sixteen horses and several hundred men, bound for Mexico.

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Spanish conquistadores swept across the Americas in 2 wide arcs of conquest - one driving from Cuba through Mexico into what is now the southwestern United States, and the other starting from Panama and pushing south into Peru. Within half a century of Columbus' arrival, the conquistadores had overtaken the Aztec and Incan empires, claiming a territory that stretched between Colorado and Argentina.

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In 1513 and 1521, Juan Ponce de Leon explored Florida, which he first thought was an island. He searched for gold, but instead found death, as he was slain by an indigenous archer.

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The French king dispatched Italian mariner Giovanni da Verrazano to probe the eastern seaboard.

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By this time in Mexico, colonial administrators had replaced the freebooting conquistadores.

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Francisco Pizarro crushed the Incan Empire

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Frenchman Jacques Cartier journeys hundreds of miles up the St. Lawrence river.

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Hernando de Soto undertook a gold-seeking expedition with 600 men, discovering and crossing the Mississippi River.

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Francisco Coronado searched for fabled golden cities, and instead found the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River and enormous herds of buffalo.

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Within 50 years of Spanish arrival in the Americas, the Taino natives of Hispaniola had dwindled from 1 million to 200.

Additionally, by this time in Peru, colonial administrators had replaced the freebooting conquistadores.

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Universities founded in Mexico City and Lima, Peru, 85 years before Harvard (the first university in the English colonies) was founded.

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The Spanish erect a fortress in St. Augustine, Florida in a move to block French ambitions and protect the sea-lanes to the Caribbean. This marks the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in the future United States.

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Allured by tales of Coronado's expedition of the 1540s to the upper Rio Grande and Colorado River, the conquistadores continue to venture upward, including in a venture in which hundreds of men traversed through the Sonora Desert and into the Rio Grande Valley. Led by Don Juan de Onate, they cruelly abused the Pueblo peoples they encountered.

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In the Battle of Acoma between the traversing Spanish and the Pueblo peoples, the Spanish severed one foot of each survivor.

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By the end of the 16th century, Spain was swimming in silver from the New World, particularly from the mines at Potosi in present-day Bolivia as well as Mexico. In the century after, a price revolution occurred in Europe that increased consumer costs by as much as 500%

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Area explored by Don Juan de Onate proclaimed to be New Mexico, with Santa Fe being established the following year.

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Pope's Rebellion occurred in New Mexico as Spanish settlers promoted Roman Catholicism and stifled Native religions. In this rebellion, Pueblo rebels destroyed every Catholic church in the province and killed a score of priests and hundreds of Spanish settlers. The natives built a kiva, or a ceremonial religious chamber, atop the ruins of the Spanish plaza at Santa Fe, and it took settlers nearly half a century to reclaim New Mexico after the insurrection.

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The French send an expedition down the Mississippi River under Robert La Salle.

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Spanish missionaries led by Father Junipero Serra founded the first of what would be 21 California missions in San Diego