European colonization of the Americas began as early as the 10th century, when Norse sailors explored and settled limited areas on the shores of present-day Greenland and Canada.[1] Extensive European colonization began in 1492, when a Spanish expedition headed by Christopher Columbus sailed west to find a new trade route to the Far East but inadvertently found the Americas. European conquest, large-scale exploration, and colonization soon followed. Columbus's first two voyages (1492-93) reached the Bahamas and various Caribbean islands, including Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and Cuba. In 1497, sailing from Bristol on behalf of England, John Cabot landed on the North American coast, and a year later, Columbus's third voyage reached the South American coast. France founded colonies in much of eastern North America, on a number of Caribbean islands, and in South America. Portugal colonized Brazil. This was the beginning of a dramatic territorial expansion for several European countries. Seeing that Europe had been preoccupied with internal wars, and was only slowly recovering from the loss of population caused by the bubonic plague, the rapid rate at which it grew in wealth and power was unforeseeable in the early 1400s.[2] Eventually, the entire Western Hemisphere came under the control of European governments, leading to profound changes to its landscape, population, and plant and animal life. In the 19th century alone over 50 million people left Europe for the Americas.[3] The post-1492 era is known as the period of the Columbian Exchange, a dramatically widespread exchange of animals, plants, culture, human populations (including slaves), communicable disease, and ideas between the American and Afro-Eurasian hemispheres following Columbus's voyages to the Americas.