Pedro Gutiérrez de Valdivia or Valdiva was a Spanish conquistador and the first royal governor of Chile. After serving with the Spanish army in Italy and Flanders, he was sent to South America in 1534, where he served as lieutenant under Francisco Pizarro in Peru, acting as his second in command.
Posthumous portrait by Federico de Madrazo
Alonso de Ovalle's 1646 engraving of Pedro de Valdivia.
Pedro Lira's 1789 painting of the founding of Santiago by Pedro de Valdivia at Huelén Hill.
Alonso de Ovalle's 1646 engraving of Valdivia, Villagra and Alderete.
Conquistadors or conquistadores was a term used to refer to Spanish and Portuguese colonialists of the early modern period. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond the Iberian Peninsula to the Americas, Oceania, Africa and Asia, establishing new colonies and trade routes. They brought much of the "New World" under the dominion of Spain and Portugal.
Hernán Cortés led the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and expanded the Spanish Empire in the Americas
Ponce de León and his explorers in Florida searching for the Fountain of Youth
Christopher Columbus and his Spanish crew making their first landfall in the Americas in 1492
Hernando de Soto and Spanish conquistadors seeing the Mississippi River for the first time.
