what was the first successful english colony in the new world
New England Colonies A group of Puritans known as the Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower from England and the Netherlands to establish Plymouth Colony in modern-day Massachusetts, the second successful English colony in North America, following Jamestown, Virginia. About half of the one hundred-plus passengers on the Mayflower died that first winter, mostly because of diseases contracted on the voyage followed by a harsh winter.[8] In 1621, an Indian named Squanto taught the colonists how to grow corn and where to catch eels and fish. His assistance was invaluable and helped the Pilgrims to survive the early years of the colonization. The Pilgrims lived on the same site where Squanto's Patuxet tribe had established a village before they were wiped out from diseases.[9]
The empire on which the sun never sets In the modern era, due to the British Overseas Territory of the Pitcairn Islands, the sun has not yet set on all British territories. [26]
Continent In 1501, Amerigo Vespucci and Gonçalo Coelho attempted to sail around what they considered the southern end of the Asian mainland into the Indian Ocean, passing through Fernando de Noronha. After reaching the coast of Brazil, they sailed a long way further south along the coast of South America, confirming that this was a land of continental proportions and that it also extended much further south than Asia was known to.[48] On return to Europe, an account of the voyage, called Mundus Novus ("New World"), was published under Vespucci's name in 1502 or 1503,[49] although it seems that it had additions or alterations by another writer.[50] Regardless of who penned the words, Mundus Novus credited Vespucci with saying, "I have discovered a continent in those southern regions that is inhabited by more numerous people and animals than our Europe, or Asia or Africa",[51] the first known explicit identification of part of the Americas as a continent like the other three.
Latin America With the arrival of the Europeans following Christopher Columbus' voyages, the indigenous elites, such as the Incas and Aztecs, lost power to the heavy European invasion. Hernándo Cortés seized the Aztec elite's power with the help of local groups who had favored the Aztec elite, and Francisco Pizarro eliminated the Incan rule in Western South America. The European powers of Spain and Portugal colonized the region, which along with the rest of the uncolonized world, was divided into areas of Spanish and Portuguese control by the line of demarcation in 1494, which gave Spain all areas to the west, and Portugal all areas to the east (the Portuguese lands in South America subsequently becoming Brazil). By the end of the sixteenth century Spain and Portugal had been joined by others, including France, in occupying large areas of North, Central and South America, ultimately extending from Alaska to the southern tips of the Patagonia. European culture, customs and government were introduced, with the Roman Catholic Church becoming the major economic and political power to overrule the traditional ways of the region, eventually becoming the only official religion of the Americas during this period.