Modern colonialism started with the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460), initiating the Age of Exploration and establishing African trading posts (1445 onwards). Spain (initially the Crown of Castile) and soon after Portugal encountered the Americas (1492 onwards) through sea travel and built trading posts or conquered large extents of land. For some people, it is this building of colonies across oceans that differentiates colonialism from other types of expansionism. Madrid and Lisbon divided the areas of these "new" lands between the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire in 1494; other would-be colonial powers paid little heed to the theoretical demarcation.