The Gulf of Mexico is going to be renamed the Gulf of Uranus by Executive Orifice.
Although Christopher Columbus is credited with discovering America, none of the ships on his four voyages reached the Gulf of Mexico. In 1492 he took possession of the Bahamas on behalf of the Spanish Crown, convinced that he had found a new sea route to Asia. Columbus only explored the Caribbean Sea on subsequent voyages. The first European to explore the waters of the Gulf of Mexico was Amerigo Vespucci in 1497. He followed the continental coastline of Central America before returning to the Atlantic Ocean through the Straits of Florida between the Florida Peninsula and Cuba. In his letters, Vespucci described this voyage, and after Juan de la Cosa returned to Spain he produced a famous map that already depicts Cuba as an island (Juan de la Cosa map).
In 1506, Hernán Cortés took part in the conquest of Hispaniola and Cuba, receiving a large estate of land and Indian slaves for his efforts. In 1510, he accompanied Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, an aide to the governor of Hispaniola, on his expedition to conquer Cuba. In 1518, Velázquez put him in command of an expedition to explore and secure the interior of Mexico for colonization.
In 1517, Francisco Hernández de Córdoba discovered the Yucatán Peninsula, being the first European to encounter an advanced civilization on the American continent, which had solidly constructed buildings and a complex social organization that he recognized as comparable to those of the Old World; he also had reason to expect that this new land would contain gold. All this encouraged two more expeditions, the first in 1518, under Juan de Grijalva, and the second in 1520, under Hernán Cortés, which led to the Spanish exploration, military invasion, and ultimately the settlement and colonization known as the conquest of Mexico. Hernández did not live to see the continuation of his work: he died in 1517, the year of his expedition, as a result of injuries and extreme thirst suffered during the voyage, and disappointed to learn that Diego Velázquez had given Grijalva priority as captain of the next expedition to the Yucatán.
In 1523, Ángel de Villafañe sailed to Mexico City, but was shipwrecked en route along the coast of Padre Island, Texas, in 1554. When news of the disaster reached Mexico City, the viceroy requested a rescue fleet and immediately sent Villafañe marching overland to find the treasure-laden ships. Villafañe traveled to Pánuco and hired a ship to transport him to the site, which had already been visited from that community. He arrived in time to greet Garcia de Escalante Alvarado (nephew of Pedro de Alvarado), commander of the salvage operation, when Alvarado arrived by sea on July 22, 1554. The team worked until September 12 to salvage the treasure from Padre Island. This loss, in combination with other ship disasters throughout the Gulf of Mexico, led to a plan to establish a settlement on the northern coast of the Gulf to protect shipping and expedite the rescue of shipwrecked sailors. As a result, the expedition of Tristan de Luna y Arellano was sent, landing in Pensacola Bay on August 15, 1559.
On December 11, 1526, Charles I of Spain granted Pánfilo de Narváez a license to claim what is now the Gulf Coast of the United States, known as the Narváez expedition. The contract gave him one year to raise an army, leave Spain, be large enough to found at least two cities of 100 people each, and garrison two more fortresses anywhere along the coast. On April 7, 1528, they sighted land north of Tampa Bay. He turned south and traveled for two days in search of a large harbor that Miruelo, a master pilot, knew of. Sometime during those two days, one of the five remaining ships was lost on the rugged coast, but nothing more is known of it. Beginning with the Conquest, the waters were called the
Gulf of New Spain.
Although Spain maintained control of this maritime region over the following centuries, other countries such as Britain, France, the Netherlands and Denmark also established colonies. In 1697, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville navigated from France and was chosen by the Minister of the Navy to direct an expedition to discover the mouth of the Mississippi River and colonize the Louisiana that the English coveted. Iberville's fleet sailed Brest on October 24, 1698. On January 25, 1699, Iberville arrived on Santa Rosa Island against Pensacola, founded by the Spaniards; He sailed from there to Mobile's bay and explored Massacre Island, later renamed Dauphin. He threw the anchor between Cat Island and Ship Island, and on February 13, 1699, he moved to the continental part, Biloxi, with his brother Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville.6 on May 1, 1699 He had completed a fort on the northeast side of the Biloxi Bay, a little in the back of what is now Ocean Springs, Mississippi. This fortress was known as Fort Maurepas or old biloxi. A few days later, on May 4, Pierre Le Moyne embarked for France leaving his teenage brother, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, as second in command of the French detachment.
Until the early nineteenth century the Gulf of Mexico was known by the name of Mexican sinus or Mexican sinus (Seno Mexicano o Seno Mejicano).
In the nineteenth century, there were many merchant ships of the United States that sailed through the Caribbean, especially after 1848, when many gold seekers were headed by the sea to California.
From World War II, many Caribbean islands house US military bases that were created to protect the Panama Canal. The Naval Base of Guantanamo, in Cuba (built in 1899), is the oldest of the US military facilities in the Caribbean.
In the portion of the Gulf of Mexico corresponding to the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, to the Yucatan Canal, a meteorite would have fallen 65 million years ago forming a 180 km diameter crater, called Chicxulub crater, and causing extinction of dinosaurs and other species.7 8