Born c. 1500,
Extremadura, Spain
Died May 21, 1542,
Mississippi River

By 1539, when his expedition sailed along the coast of Florida, Hernando de Soto was already a seasoned explorer and a wealthy man. He had been drawn to the North American continent by stories about hidden cities that contained vast amounts of gold and silver. De Soto and his party, who traveled for nearly three years in search of treasure, were possibly the first Europeans to sight the Mississippi River.

Born in about 1500 in Extremadura, a Spanish province near the Portuguese border, de Soto embarked on a life of adventure as a young man. In 1524 he joined an expedition to Nicaragua led by Francisco Hernandez de Córdoba, taking part in founding the city of Granada. Sometime after their arrival in Nicaragua, de Soto sided with Córdoba’s adversary, Pedro Arias, in a...