Q 01/05

Juan Ponce de León is best known for leading the first European expeditions to which two places?

A) Peru and Chile

B) Cuba and Mexico

C) Jamaica and Panama

D) Puerto Rico and Florida

Answer · why

D) Puerto Rico and Florida

Puerto Rico came in 1508 and Florida in 1513.

Q 02/05

In which Spanish province was Ponce de León born, in the village of Santervás de Campos?

A) Galicia

B) Seville

C) Toledo

D) Valladolid

Answer · why

D) Valladolid

Older histories put his birth in 1460, but recent evidence points to 1474.

Q 03/05

With whose expedition did Ponce de León first sail to the Americas in 1493?

A) Christopher Columbus's second voyage

B) Amerigo Vespucci's first voyage

C) Hernán Cortés's Mexican expedition

D) Vasco da Gama's fleet

Answer · why

A) Christopher Columbus's second voyage

He was one of 200 'gentleman volunteers' among some 1,200 sailors, colonists and soldiers.

Q 04/05

Under which knight commander of the Order of Calatrava did the young Ponce de León serve as page and squire?

A) Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar

B) Íñigo López de Mendoza

C) Pedro Núñez de Guzmán

D) Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba

Answer · why

C) Pedro Núñez de Guzmán

Guzmán's help got him passage on the 1493 voyage; he may have fought in the Granada War before that.

Q 05/05

Which native people of Hispaniola did Ponce de León help crush in the province of Higüey in 1504?

A) The Aztecs

B) The Maya

C) The Taíno

D) The Inca

Answer · why

C) The Taíno

The governor rewarded him with the frontier governorship of Higüey; Bartolomé de las Casas tried to report the massacre.