Spanish InquisitionThe Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición), commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition (Inquisición española), was established in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. It began toward the end of the Reconquista and was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms and to replace the Medieval Inquisition, which was under papal control.
GuanahaniGuanahaní (meaning "small upper waters land") was the Taíno name of an island in the Bahamas that was the first land in the New World sighted and visited by Christopher Columbus' first voyage, on 12 October 1492. It is a bean-shaped island that Columbus called San Salvador. Guanahaní has traditionally been identified with Watlings Island, which was officially renamed San Salvador Island in 1925 as a result, but modern scholars are divided on the accuracy of this identification and several alternative candidates in and around the southern Bahamas have been proposed as well.
New WorldThe term New World is often used to describe the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, including the Americas. The term gained prominence in the early 16th century during Europe's Age of Discovery, shortly after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci concluded that America, now often called the Americas, represented a new continent and subsequently published his findings in Mundus Novus, a Latin language pamphlet.
Treaty of TordesillasThe Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in Tordesillas, Spain, on 7 June 1494, and ratified in Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Portuguese Empire and the Spanish Empire (Crown of Castile), along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands, off the west coast of Africa. That line of demarcation was about halfway between the Cape Verde islands (already Portuguese) and the islands visited by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage (claimed for Castile and León), named in the treaty as Cipangu and Antillia (Cuba and Hispaniola).
HispaniolaHispaniola (ˌhɪspənˈjoʊlə, also UK-pænˈ-; La Española; Latin and Hispaniola; Ispayola; Ayiti or Quisqueya) is an island in the Caribbean that is part of the Greater Antilles and Antilles. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and the region's second largest in area, after the island of Cuba. The island is divided into two separate nations: the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic (48,445 km2, 18,705 sq mi) to the east and the French/Haitian Creole-speaking Haiti (27,750 km2, 10,710 sq mi) to the west.
Catherine of AragonCatherine of Aragon (also spelt as Katherine, Catalina; 16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536) was Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 11 June 1509 until their annulment on 23 May 1533. Born in Spain, she was Princess of Wales while married to Henry's elder brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales, for a short period before his death. The daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, Catherine was three years old when she was betrothed to Prince Arthur, heir apparent to the English throne.