21. Controlling the choke point: Spain's dominance of the Caribbean

From today's perspective, it's hard to see the power Spain held over the Americas in the 1500s. It would be like America preventing any other nation from travelling to the moon.

Authors note: Recently I lost the use of my laptop so with that issue finally resolved, this latest article arrives slightly later than I had scheduled.

The great obsession: finding a route to Asia

As European explorers gradually came to the realization that the lands first encountered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 and then by subsequent explorers were in fact not Asia but a great unknown land mass, searching for a passage through it (or around it) became an obsession.

In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer sailing for Spain, sailed across the Atlantic and followed the coast of South America to the southern tip of the continent. He then threaded his fleet through a complex set of islands now called the Magellan Straight to reach the Pacific Ocean. After crossing the Pacific, then known as the South Sea, his expedition finally reached Asia. After getting himself killed in the Phillipines, Magellan’s remaining ships under new leadership continued on and managed to circumnavi…