This is a chronology and timeline of the colonization of North America, with founding dates of selected European settlements. See also European colonization of the Americas.
986: Norsemen settle Greenland and Bjarni Herjólfsson sights coast of North America, but doesn't land (see also Norse colonization of the Americas).
c. 1000: Norse settle briefly in L'Anse aux Meadows and possibly Point Rosee in Newfoundland.
c. 1200: English, Irish, Norse fisherman begin fishing off the coast of Newfoundland
c. 1450: Norse colony in Greenland dies out.
1473: João Vaz Corte-Real perhaps reaches Newfoundland; writes about the "Land of Cod fish" in his journal.
1492: Columbus reaches The Bahamas, Cuba and Hispaniola.
1492: the colony of La Isabela is established on the island of Hispaniola.
1496: Santo Domingo, the first European permanent settlement is built.
1497: John Cabot reached Newfoundland.
1498: in his third voyage, Columbus reaches what is now Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago
1498: La Isabela is abandoned by the Spanish.
1499: João Fernandes Lavrador maps Labrador and Newfoundland
1500: Pedro Álvares Cabral discovers the coast of present-day Brazil
1501: Corte-Real brothers explored, today Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador
1502: Columbus sails along the mainland coast south of Yucatán, and reaches present-day Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama
1508: Ponce de Leon founds Caparra on San Juan Bautista (now Puerto Rico)
1511: Conquest of Cuba begins
1513: Ponce de Leon in Florida
1515: Conquest of Cuba completed
1517: Francisco Hernández de Córdoba lands on the Yucatán Peninsula
1519: Founding of Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz (Veracruz)
1521: Hernán Cortés completes the conquest of Mexico.
1521: Juan Ponce de León tries and fails to settle in Florida
1524: Pedro de Alvarado conquests present-day Guatemala and El Salvador
1524: Giovanni da Verrazzano sails along most of the east coast
1525: Estêvão Gomes enters Upper New York Bay
1526: Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón tries to settle in South Carolina
1527: Fishermen are using the harbor at St. John's, Newfoundland and other places on the coast
1535: Jacques Cartier reaches Quebec
1536: Cabeza de Vaca reaches Mexico City after wandering through North America.
1538: Failed Huguenot settlement on St. Kitts in the Caribbean (destroyed by the Spanish)
1539: Hernando de Soto explores the interior from Florida to Arkansas.
1540: Coronado travels from Mexico to eastern Kansas.
1540: Spanish reach the Grand Canyon (the area is ignored for the next 200 years)
1541: Failed French settlement at Charlesbourg-Royal (Quebec City) by Cartier and Roberval
1542: Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo on the California coast.
1559: Failed Spanish settlement at Pensacola, Florida
1562: Failed Huguenot settlement in South Carolina (Charlesfort-Santa Elena site)
1564: French Huguenots at Jacksonville, Florida (Fort Caroline)
1565: Spanish slaughter French 'heretics' at Fort Caroline.
1565: Spanish found Saint Augustine, Florida
1566–87: Spanish in South Carolina (Charlesfort-Santa Elena site)
1568: Dutch revolt against Spain. The economic model developed in Holland would define colonial policies in the next two centuries
1570: Failed Spanish settlement on Chesapeake Bay (Ajacán Mission)
1576: Martin Frobisher on the coast of Labrador and Baffin Island
1579: Sir Francis Drake claims New Albion.
1583: England formally claims Newfoundland (Humphrey Gilbert)
1585: Failed English settlement on Roanoke Island, North Carolina (Lost Colony).
1598: Failed French settlement on Sable Island off Nova Scotia
1598: Spanish reach Northern New Mexico
1600: By 1600 Spain and Portugal were still the only significant colonial powers. North of Mexico the only settlements were Saint Augustine and the isolated outpost in northern New Mexico. Exploration of the interior was largely abandoned after the 1540s. Around Newfoundland 500 or more boats annually were fishing for cod and some fishermen were trading for furs, especially at Tadoussac on the Saint Lawrence.
1604 – Acadia – French
1605 – Port Royal – French
1607 – Jamestown – English
1607 – Popham Colony – English
1608 – Quebec – French
1610 – Cuper's Cove – English
1610 – Kecoughtan, Virginia – English
1610 – Santa Fe – Spanish
1611 – Henricus – English
1612 - Bermuda - English
1615 – Fort Nassau – Dutch
1615 – Renews, Newfoundland – English
1618 – Bristol's Hope – English
1620 – St. John's, Newfoundland – English
1620 – Plymouth Colony – English
1621 – Nova Scotia – Scottish
1622 – Province of Maine – English
1623 – Portsmouth – English
1623 – Stage Point – English
1623 – Dover – English
1623 – Pannaway – English
1623 – New Castle – English
1623 – Fort Nassau – Dutch
1624 – Governors Island – Dutch
1625 – Cape Breton – Scottish
1625 – New Amsterdam – Dutch
1626 – Salem – English
1630 – Massachusetts Bay Colony – English
1630 -Pavonia – Dutch
1631 – Saint John, New Brunswick – English
1632 – Williamsburgh – English
1633 – Fort Hoop – Dutch
1633 – Windsor, Connecticut – English
1634 – Maryland Colony – English
1634 – Wethersfield – English
1635 – Territory of Sagadahock – English
1636 – Providence Plantations – English
1636 – Connecticut Colony – English
1638 – New Haven Colony – English
1638 – Fort Christina – Swedish
1638 – Exeter – English
1638 - Hampton, New Hampshire - English
1639 – Bridgeport, Connecticut – English
1639 – Newport – English
1639 – San Marcos – Spanish
1640 – New Stockholm – Swedish
1640 – Swedesboro- Swedish
1642 – Montreal – French
1651 – Fort Casimir – Dutch
1660 – Bergen – Dutch
1665 – Elizabethtown – English
1666 – Newark- English
1669 – English Neighborhood – Dutch, English,
1670 – Charleston – English
1678 – New Paltz, New York – French
1680 – Fort Crevecoeur (Peoria, IL) – French
1682 – Pennsylvania – English
1683? – Fort Saint Louis (Illinois)- French
1683 – East New Jersey – Scottish
1684 – Stuarts Town, Carolina – Scottish
1685 – Fort Saint Louis (Texas)- French
1691 – Fort Pimiteoui (Fort Crevecoeur, Peoria, IL) – French
1698 – Pensacola, Florida – Spanish
1699 – Louisiana – French
1704 - Delaware separated from PA
1714 - Germanna, VA - Germans from Hessen-Nassau
1717 - Germanna, VA - Germans from Baden-Wurttemberg
1718 – New Orleans – French
1718 – San Antonio – Spanish
1721 - Germanna, VA - Germans
1721 – Greenland – Danish
1729 - Baltimore - British
1733 – Province of Georgia – British
1734 - Culpeper, VA - Germans
1738 - Culpeper, VA; some to Bethlehem, PA -Germans
1763 - St. Louis (Missouri) - French
1769 – San Diego – Spanish
1770 – Monterey – Spanish
1775 – Tucson – Spanish
1776 – San Francisco – Spanish
1777 – San Jose – Spanish
1781 – Los Angeles – Spanish
1784 – Kodiak Island – Russian
1791 – Santa Cruz – Spanish
Timeline of the European colonization of North America Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA