1415 and Seuta which is here had just fallen to the Portuguese. This conquest was led by King John I of Portugal who was seeking loot and to control the straits of Jibralta. The northern side being dominated by the Kingdom of Castile. This straight controlled trade flowing in and out of the Mediterranean which was important because Portugal as you can see was not in the Mediterranean and wanted to be guaranteed access to its trade routes. A bit of background, the Iberian Peninsula at this time was divided into five different entities. On the Atlantic coast was Portugal. In the middle of the peninsula was Castile. To the north was Nava. To the south the Islamic Emirate of Granada and on the Mediterranean coast was the Kingdom of Aragon. The two kingdoms responsible for most of the exploring in the period were Castile which was very wealthy and Portugal which had a strong naval tradition. Expansion around this time was intermittent and was often due to the patronage of wealthy individuals often monarchs. In the case of Portugal, much was due to Henry the Navigator whose sponsorship allowed Portugal to claim and settle Madiraa and the Azours. His patronage also funded Portuguese exploration of Africa and by 1445 most of the northwestern coast of Africa had been explored. The Portuguese had a monopoly on the trade from this region and to protect it they built coastal and island forts from which they operated. These were called ftorias and essentially acted as trading ports, warehouses and military garrisons and gave Portugal huge influence in the surrounding areas. The trade from West Africa was mostly meager until 1471 when the Portuguese sailed down to what is now modern-day Ghana. Here they found a trading network rich in gold, ivory, and slaves. This made many Portuguese traders very rich, and at first they tried to keep this trade a secret, which of course didn't happen because wealth has a tendency of getting noticed, in this case, by the Castillians. Wealth was one of the main reasons for exploration and would soon become an important tax revenue for many European kingdoms. There were other reasons, however. Religion played a huge part in pushing exploration. Many Christians felt compelled to convert the natives of faraway lands. Christians were also searching for Prester John, a mythical Christian king from either Africa or Asia, who they wanted to ask for help in a crusade. Castile had done some of its own exploring and colonizing by this point and had been slowly conquering the Canary Islands. Castellian ships were also following the Portuguese down the coast of Africa and trading as well. During the War of the Castellian Succession, which saw Isabella proclaimed the queen of Castile, the Portuguese and Castellian fleets often fought off the coast of Africa. Isabella was married to Ferdinand, the king of Aragan, and together they conquered the emirate of Granada in 1492, uniting most of the peninsula and forming the bases of Spain. For the sake of simplicity, both Castile and Araggon will be referred to as Spanish, but they were technically distinct kingdoms. So, Portuguese and Spanish exploration really kicked off towards the end of the 15th century due to the new technology of triangular sails. These sails allowed ships to sail into the wind and further than ever before which precipitated a major rise in explorative voyages which were mostly dominated by sailors from Venice, Genanoa, Portugal and Castile. The Portuguese moved further and further down the coast of Africa until Bartholomew Diaz sailed around the southern tip of Africa in 1488, opening up the Indian Ocean to exploration. The most famous voyage of the era occurred in 1492 when Christopher Columbus, a genoan, sailed under the patronage of Castile and Araggon and discovered the new world, landing in the Bahamas. although he believed he had landed in Asia. Next was Vasco Dama who in 1498 sailed all the way around Africa and landed in India. After him was America Vispucci who sailed to Brazil and demonstrated that the new world was in fact not Asia. America's name would later form the basis of America, the name for this new continent. In 1500, Pedro Gerald discovered Brazil before traveling to India as well. Columbus' attempt to find a route to Asia and Agama's search for a route to India were due to the desire to circumvent the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans had expanded quickly during the 15th century and in 1453 had put an end to the Byzantine Empire when they conquered Constantinople. Many Europeans weren't keen on trading with an Islamic power which profited from them. As such, many Europeans look for ways around the Ottomans to save money and avoid having to trade with Muslims. So, Portugal and Spain, having invested so much in exploring, wanted returns for their efforts and so approached the greatest moral authority of the time, the Pope, for guarantees. Various popes gave guarantees, but eventually the Portuguese and Castellian monarchs made their own agreement. This agreement, the treaty of toisas, divided the world between Spain and Portugal. This agreement was quickly ignored by other European powers, but it did help direct both Castile and Portugal. Both wanted power and wealth, but the ways they built their empires were fundamentally different. The Spanish built what could be said is a more traditional territorial empire. There are a lot of individual conquests, but the two best known were those by the concquisados Hernan Cortez, who conquered the Aztec Empire, and Francisco Pizarro, who conquered the Incas. So, Cortez landed in what is now Mexico in 1519, having been ordered by the governor of Cuba to not do exactly that. The Aztec Empire that dominated Mexico was not some grand unified state. It was comprised of subject states which paid tribute often in the form of humans for sacrifice to the Aztecs and their ruler who was called the Tatawani. His name was Mckazuma II and lived in the Aztec capital of Tanit Lan which had a population of roughly a quarter million people. After making contact with the Aztecs, Cortez made his way through the Aztec tributary states such as the semi-independent Talaxins who saw the Spanish arrival as an opportunity to overthrow their Aztec overlords. After making alliances and a little bit of fighting, Cortez took a small force of his men to Tanitan where he was greeted by Mocktuma who soon found himself essentially a Spanish puppet. Whilst Cortez was in Tanit Lan, a man called Panilo de Narveas arrived on the coast of Mexico to arrest him for defying the Cuban governor. Cortez left the Aztec capital and gave Narva's men a reason to join him. That reason was gold. Cortez returned to Tennocitlan which was in revolt against him and during the fighting Mockazuma was killed along with roughly 800 conquistadors. Cortez fled to Taxcala where they were reinforced and planned a counterattack. At this point the Aztec grip on their empire was severely diminished and with the help of many former Aztec subjects the Spanish laid siege to Tani Lam which had recently had an outbreak of smallpox. The combined Spanish native force won decisively and the Aztec Empire was annexed. Over the next decade, more Spanish concquistadors arrived. Rebelling peoples were subjugated and Central America became the vice royalty of New Spain. A decade after Cortez's victory, Pizarro and a group of concquistadors landed here in what was then the Incan Empire. The Incas were at the time undergoing a civil war over the succession of the throne, which was won by a certain Ato Alpa. Pizarro invited a Taho to meet him and 150 of his men at a place called Cayamaka, which Ataho Alpa agreed to. When he arrived, Pizarro sprung his trap, capturing the Incan leader and holding him for ransom before executing him the year after. This ransom was huge, so huge it took two years to deliver. This made the Conqueristadors exceptionally rich and thus the Incan Empire very poor. The Incan Empire never recovered from this, and over the next few decades, it disintegrated and was incorporated into the Spanish Empire as part of the vice royalty of Peru. It was from South America that Spain got famously wealthy from the silver mines there, which they extracted via the use of native labor. Expansion of empire did not mean the end of exploration and in 1519 Ferdinand Mellin began the first successful circumnavigation of the globe. He didn't see the end of the voyage though since he decided to stop off at the Philippines in order to be murdered. Portugal's approach was marketkedly different from Spain. After Vasco Dama's initial journey, the Portuguese made almost yearly voyages into the Indian Ocean with fleets called Armadas to conduct trade missions. In fact, Cabra was leading one of these armadas when Brazil was discovered in 1500. The Portuguese did settle Brazil shortly afterwards, which was an important source of lumber. But since there was no gold there, the Portuguese focused on the land surrounding the Indian Ocean instead. One aspect of Portuguese power that differed from Spain was that it was overwhelmingly focused on the navy. This meant that pushing deep inland like the Spanish did was unfeasible. Instead, Portugal established what has been called a trading post empire, whereby many ftorias were created along the coasts of the Indian Ocean, and from them the mighty Portuguese Navy operated. Portugal's navy was important in shaping Indian Ocean trade when the cartis system was established. Under this system, sailors and traders would pay Portugal for a license and in return, Portugal would keep them safe from hostile states and pirates. Failure to pay the cartis would lead to either ships being refused passage, having their goods seized or being attacked. The cartis alongside the strength of the Portuguese Navy gave Portugal dominance over Indian ocean trade. This upset the Ottomans who tried to remove the Portuguese but ultimately failed. In 1510, under the command of a man called Alphonso de Albuquerque, the Portuguese captured Goa, which became a strategically important outpost. The next year, he conquered Malaca, giving Portugal control over the Straits of Malaca, an important choke point in the lucrative spice trading network. In 1542, the Portuguese established contact and trade with the Japanese. And in 1557, Portugal was Macau in China from which they traded. It wasn't just Portugal in Southeast Asia, since in 1564, Spain also conquered the Philippines. Brazil was not entirely ignored during this time either. French explorers started smuggling Brazilwood back to Europe and even settled on the coast there. This forced the Portuguese to begin formal colonization and to make sure the French stopped coming back, they simply paid them. Brazil would later become extremely important to the Portuguese economy as a massive importer of slaves from Africa. These empires brought huge amounts of wealth back to both Spain and Portugal, tipping the European balance of power. Spain, under Carlos I and Philippe II became Europe's most powerful country. This was primarily because of the masses of silver that were imported from the New World back to Europe, as well as the money made and trade with Africa. Wealthy kingdoms tend to make enemies, and Spain and Portugal were no different. The Spanish soon found themselves at odd with the French, the English, the Portuguese, and later the Dutch. These costly wars, alongside the declining value of silver, meant that Spain gradually became poorer, but ultimately would remain the most powerful European nation for several more decades. The Portuguese were slightly better at avoiding European wars and its power didn't wain until the Iberian Union which occurred when King Sebastian died. This led to a conflict which Philipe of Spain won making him the king of Portugal as well. This made Spain's enemies Portugals and thus other European powers began to grab some of Portugal's colonies. In conclusion, the Portuguese and Spanish were the first out of the gates when it came to empire building. Their empires are ultimately complex and should not be seen as merely good or uniformly evil. Whilst conquest and destruction did occur widely, they also opened world trade to Europeans, which for better or worse made the world we live in today. I hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching.