Spanish Empire

State · 1516–1879 CE · at its largest around 1809 CE

The first empire on which the sun never set poured silver from Potosí and Mexico into world trade and spread Catholicism and the Spanish language across the Americas. Its conquests devastated Indigenous peoples, while its Golden Age produced Cervantes, Velázquez and El Greco.

Its battles, in Battle View

Battle of Lepanto (1571 CE)
Battle of Rocroi (1643 CE)

On its lands while it lasted

Maya civilization (c. 2,000 BCE – c. 1697 CE): Civilization of southern Mexico and Central America known for its writing system, calendar, astronomy and monumental cities; Maya peoples still live in the region.
Tenochtitlan (1325–1521 CE): Mexica (Aztec) capital founded on an island in Lake Texcoco; with causeways, canals and chinampa gardens it became one of the largest cities in the world.
Rise of the Inca Empire (1438–1533 CE): Under Pachacuti from 1438 the Inca expanded from Cusco to rule Tawantinsuyu, the largest empire of the pre-Columbian Americas, stretching along the Andes.
Fall of Tenochtitlan (1521 CE): After a months-long siege weakened by smallpox, Spanish and indigenous forces took Tenochtitlan in August 1521, ending the Aztec Empire.
Magellan–Elcano expedition: Philippines to Spain (1521–1522 CE): After Magellan was killed at Mactan in April 1521, Juan Sebastián Elcano led the survivors via the Moluccas and around Africa. The Victoria reached Spain in September 1522 with 18 men, completing the first circumnavigation of the globe.
Middle Passage (c. 1526–1866 CE): The forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas. Of about 12.5 million people embarked between the 16th and 19th centuries, some 1.8 million died on the crossing.
Mughal Empire founded (1526–1857 CE): Empire founded by Babur that at its height ruled most of the Indian subcontinent, famed for its wealth, administration and architecture.
Taj Mahal (1632 CE): White marble mausoleum at Agra built by Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, begun in 1632; the most celebrated work of Mughal architecture.
Simón Bolívar (1783 CE – 1830 CE): Caracas-born leader who led the independence of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia from Spain, known as El Libertador.
Haitian Revolution (1791–1804 CE): Uprising of enslaved people in the French colony of Saint-Domingue that abolished slavery and created Haiti, the first state founded by formerly enslaved people.
Eruption of Mount Tambora (1815 CE): The most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded history, on Sumbawa in April 1815; it killed tens of thousands and caused the 'Year Without a Summer' in 1816.
First Opium War (1839–1842 CE): Britain defeated Qing China in a war over trade and the opium traffic, beginning China's "century of humiliation".
Indian Rebellion of 1857 (1857–1858 CE): Uprising that began with a mutiny of sepoys at Meerut and spread across northern India, leading to the end of East India Company rule.
British Raj (1858–1947 CE): After the 1857 rebellion the British Crown took direct rule of India from the East India Company, governing until independence in 1947.
American Civil War (1861–1865 CE): War between the Union and the Confederacy of southern slave states; the Union victory preserved the United States and ended slavery.