40 Fun Facts About Francisco Vazquez De Coronado

Scouts sent out by Coronado became the first Europeans to see which natural wonder of the American Southwest?

Grand Canyon views stopped the scouts on the South Rim, where they spent three days seeking a way down before three soldiers tried the descent and gave up.

Coronado wrote of plains so full of which animals, which he called cows, that he never lost sight of them?

Bison awed the Spaniards: one chronicler said the plain was so level that sky showed between the animals' legs.

Which Indiana Jones film opens with young Indy snatching the fictional Cross of Coronado from grave robbers?

The Last Crusade dates the gift of the cross to a year when the real Coronado was a boy of about ten still living in Spain.

What badly injured Coronado in New Mexico shortly before he and his men decided to abandon the expedition?

A fall from his horse gave Coronado a head injury in early 1542, and during his long recovery the expedition agreed to give up and go home.

What kind of storm battered Coronado's camp on the plains, denting helmets, ripping tents and smashing the crockery?

A hailstorm blew in one afternoon with a very high wind, and the chronicler counted the army's broken gourds as no small loss.

Coronado's hunt for gold ended among grass-house villages in which US state, the farthest point of his march?

Kansas was the end of the road: after weeks among farming villages near the great bend of a prairie river, Coronado turned back empty-handed.

Why did the supply fleet sent to meet Coronado turn back after rowing up the Colorado River?

Worms were eating the boats, by one account of the letters the sailors buried beneath a marked tree; a Coronado patrol later dug them up.

Coronado's chroniclers marveled at Plains nomads who moved camp using which animals to carry their tent poles?

Dogs carried the poles and packs of a whole camp, a system later called the travois; Coronado described these hunters as nomads who followed the herds.

Coronado's surname is also an everyday Spanish word; what does 'coronado' mean in English?

Crowned is the meaning: a Pacific island group named Los Cuatro Coronados in 1602 honors four martyrs, not the explorer.

Instead of the gold he was promised, Coronado found a plains chief wearing a pendant made of which metal?

Copper was all the wealth on show; the tales that drew him there had promised a bearded king who worshipped a cross of gold.

Coronado hoped to repeat the fortune which conquistador had won by toppling the Aztec Empire about twenty years earlier?

Hernán Cortés took the Aztec capital in 1521, and stories of that treasure kept Spaniards chasing rumored golden kingdoms for a generation.

Which king of Spain, also Holy Roman Emperor, received Coronado's letter praising the rich soil of the plains?

Charles V ruled Spain as Charles I; it was his viceroy in New Spain, not the emperor himself, who chose Coronado to lead the expedition.

Coronado's army spent two winters in pueblos it took over along which river in central New Mexico?

Rio Grande villagers paid dearly: the army took a whole pueblo for its quarters and demanded food and clothing, setting off a winter of fighting.

Dozens of Spanish crossbow points unearthed in the 1990s pinned down a Coronado campsite in which US state?

Texas yielded the proof in the 1990s, when a local man's finds near Floydada led archaeologists to dozens more points and Spanish-made nails.

Coronado National Memorial marks where the expedition entered what is now the United States, in which state?

Arizona got the memorial in 1952; planners had hoped Mexico would create a matching park across the border, but it never did.

Coronado's first winter camp lay just north of which New Mexico city, where Interstate 40 is the Coronado Freeway?

Albuquerque is about 16 miles south of Coronado Historic Site, a ruined pueblo near the old camp that preserves murals painted before the Spanish came.

Coronadite, named in the early 1900s in honor of Coronado, is what kind of natural object?

A mineral, coronadite is a lead-bearing manganese oxide that geologist Waldemar Lindgren named for the explorer of the region where it was found.

Coronado's seaborne supply fleet sailed north from Acapulco up which long, narrow body of water?

Gulf of California waters carried the fleet to the mouth of the Colorado River, and a pilot's chart from the voyage is the earliest accurate map of both.

Which group formed the bulk of Coronado's fighting force, far outnumbering the European men-at-arms?

Mexican Indian allies from about twenty peoples of central and western New Spain made up most of the army and carried their own weapons.

To help pay for the expedition, Coronado pawned estates that belonged to which member of his family?

His wife, Beatriz de Estrada, had brought to the marriage one of the largest estates in New Spain, an important source of the expedition's funding.

Coronado marched north seeking seven legendary cities of gold, known to the Spanish by which name?

Cíbola turned out to be a cluster of plain farming pueblos, and the furious soldiers turned on the friar who had described a rich city.

What nickname did Coronado's men give the captive Plains guide who promised to lead them to a land of gold?

The Turk steered the army far off course, apparently so that it would get lost on the plains, and Coronado had him executed before turning back.

After the pueblos proved poor, a captive guide lured Coronado onto the plains with tales of which rich land?

Quivira was said to be so rich that everyone drank from jugs of gold; the real place had thatched houses and fields of corn.

Which Pueblo people defended Hawikuh, the first town Coronado's hungry army stormed on its way north?

Zuni defenders refused the Spaniards entry and knocked Coronado down with a large stone before the town fell in under an hour.

The Querechos, tent-dwelling nomads Coronado met following the herds across the plains, were a band of which people?

Apache hunters, the Querechos talked with the Spaniards in a sign language so clear that no interpreter was needed.

Which Franciscan friar's report of a rich city in the north persuaded the viceroy to send Coronado?

Marcos de Niza said he had seen a city bigger than the capital of New Spain; when it proved a modest pueblo, Coronado sent him home in disgrace.

Which Moroccan-born survivor of the Narváez expedition was killed scouting Hawikuh a year before Coronado arrived?

Estevanico, an enslaved man who had crossed the continent on foot, went ahead of a friar's party as its guide and never came back.

Coronado sailed to New Spain in the entourage of which personal friend, the colony's first viceroy?

Antonio de Mendoza put his own money into the expedition he handed to Coronado, then stayed behind to deal with unrest in the colony.

Coronado was born into a noble family in which Spanish city, home to one of Europe's oldest universities?

Salamanca's university dates from 1218; Coronado, a second son, left Spain at about 25 to make his career in New Spain.

Coronado's nephew Juan Vázquez de Coronado is remembered for colonizing which Central American country?

Costa Rica remembers him for fair dealing with its native peoples, and a canton of San José province still carries the family name.

The tall, tattooed farmers Coronado found in grass houses at the end of his march were ancestors of which people?

Wichita ancestors lived in villages of up to two hundred houses, and Coronado called their rich black soil the best land he had seen.

After a month heading north by compass, Coronado's small party reached which large tributary of the Mississippi?

Arkansas River banks led the riders northeast for three days to a band of local hunters, who took fright until a guide called to them in their own language.

Coronado wrote that crossing which featureless tableland of the southern plains was like being swallowed by the sea?

Llano Estacado, the Staked Plains, is so flat that soldiers who wandered from the column got lost, with no tree or stone to steer by.

Which people, whose mesa villages the Spanish called Tusayan, told Coronado's scouts of a great river to the west?

Hopi villagers at first barred the scouts, then made peace with gifts, and Hopi guides later led a second party toward the river.

Which Scott O'Dell novel follows a teenage mapmaker who joins Coronado's hunt for the cities of gold?

The King's Fifth is named for the one-fifth share of all treasure owed to Spain's ruler, and it was a Newbery Honor book in 1967.

A blind old man told Coronado he had once met four men like the Spaniards, probably which castaway's party?

Cabeza de Vaca and three companions had walked across the continent after a failed Florida venture, and their stories of rich towns helped launch Coronado's march.

Coronado's army fought which winter conflict against a dozen Pueblo towns, named after their province?

Tiguex War is often counted as the first named war between Europeans and Native Americans in what is now the United States; it began after villagers killed dozens of the army's animals.

Before the expedition, Coronado governed which province of New Spain, named after a region of northwestern Spain?

Nueva Galicia covered much of today's western Mexico, and Coronado kept the governorship for two years after his return.

Which Coronado officer was the only member of the expedition later convicted over its brutal war on the Pueblo towns?

García López de Cárdenas, the army's field master, led the assault on the pueblo of Arenal and was later convicted in Spain by the Council of the Indies.

Which Coronado captain died after accidentally impaling himself on his own lance during a scouting trip?

Melchor Díaz hurled the lance at an animal harassing the party's sheep; it stuck in the ground and he was carried onto its butt end before he could stop.