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).
The Discovery of America by the Turks
The Discovery of America by the Turks (Portuguese: A Descoberta da América pelos Turcos) is a Brazilian Modernist novel. It was written by Jorge Amado in 1994 but not published in English until 2012. Amado tells how, in 1991, he was approached by an organization in Italy to write a story to celebrate the fifth centennial of the discovery of the American continent. This would be published in a book, together with stories by Norman Mailer and Carlos Fuentes, which would be handed out to passengers flying between Italy and Central, North and South America in 1992, the year of the fifth centennial. Amado submitted The Discovery of America by the Turks but the Italian book was never published, leaving Amado free to publish the 77-page story as a separate volume.