Exploration
In the Pacific Ocean, Jorge de Menezes (c. 1498–?), discovered Papua New Guinea. García Jofre de Loaísa (1490–1526), discovered the Marshall Islands. Explorations of the Americas began with the initial discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), who led a Castilian (Spanish) expedition across the Atlantic, discovering America. After the discovery of America by Columbus, a number of important expeditions were sent out to explore the Western Hemisphere. This included Juan Ponce de León (1474–1521), who discovered and mapped the coast of Florida; Vasco Núñez de Balboa (c. 1475–1519), who was the first European to view the Pacific Ocean from American shores (after crossing the Isthmus of Panama) confirming that America was a separate continent from Asia; Aleixo Garcia (14?–1527), who explored the territories of present-day southern Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, crossing the Chaco and reaching the Andes (near Sucre).
Martín Alonso Pinzón
These and other acts by Pinzón and by his brothers, especially Vicente, have led historians to see the brothers as "co-discoverers of America", in that without their help, support, and courage, Columbus probably could not have achieved his enterprise of discovery, at least not in that time and place. At one point during the "pleitos colombinos", a royal prosecutor argued that Pinzón had played a more important role in the discovery of the Indies the Columbus himself.