What European explorer discovered the Pacific Ocean?

What European explorer discovered the Pacific Ocean?

• A. Christopher Columbus
• B. Hernando de Soto
• C. Vasco Balboa
• D. Ferdinand Magellan

Answer: (C)

Reaching the Pacific Ocean is tied to the moment a European explorer first saw the vast body of water on the other side of the Americas. Vasco Balboa accomplished this in 1513 by leading a crossing of the Isthmus of Panama and stepping onto the Pacific coast, where he declared he had seen the South Sea. This act established for Europeans that a large ocean lay beyond the New World, separating the American continents from Asia. Magellan later became famous for navigating into the Pacific and completing the first circumnavigation, showing that a sea route existed from the Atlantic to the far side of the world, but he did not beget the discovery of the Pacific itself. Columbus never reached the Pacific, and Hernando de Soto did not explore to the Pacific. So Balboa is the explorer most closely associated with the discovery of the Pacific Ocean.

Reaching the Pacific Ocean is tied to the moment a European explorer first saw the vast body of water on the other side of the Americas. Vasco Balboa accomplished this in 1513 by leading a crossing of the Isthmus of Panama and stepping onto the Pacific coast, where he declared he had seen the South Sea. This act established for Europeans that a large ocean lay beyond the New World, separating the American continents from Asia.

Magellan later became famous for navigating into the Pacific and completing the first circumnavigation, showing that a sea route existed from the Atlantic to the far side of the world, but he did not beget the discovery of the Pacific itself. Columbus never reached the Pacific, and Hernando de Soto did not explore to the Pacific. So Balboa is the explorer most closely associated with the discovery of the Pacific Ocean.