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**__Francisco Pizarro__** Francisco Pizarro was born in Trujillo, Spain to a royal captain of infantry. Since neither of his parents were married, Pizarro was little educated and left in 1502 for the West Indies, where he lived in Hispaniola for the next seven years. In 1509, Pizarro left Hispaniola to explore the Caribbean coast of northern South America and southern Central America. On this expedition, he served as chief lieutenant to Vasco Nunez de Balboa, who marched across the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513, where the Spaniards founded Panama City six years later, with Pizarro as one of the most powerful citizens. Several years later, after hearing rumors of a nearby rich Indian empire, Pizarro began expeditions to find this civilization with Diego de Almagro in 1524. He landed in Peru in 1527, and returned to Spain after finding vast evidence of riches. The king of Spain soon named him governor of Peru, and Pizarro returned to South America, where he landed in Ecuador in 1531. With the help of San Miguel, Pizarro worked his way down to the Peruvian part of the Incan empire, all the way to the capital of Cusco, where he captured Atahualpa and used his life for ransom paid in silver, killing many Incan soldiers in the process. When Pizarro’s greed was fulfilled, he executed Atahualpa in 1533, immediately taking control of Cusco. In 1535, with the discovery of silver in Potosi, Pizarro founded the city of Lima, Peru, which soon became the capital of Peru. In later years, Spain used Pizarro’s conquest of Peru to open the doors for the absolvement of other South American territories.  Back in Peru, after a dispute over the control of Cusco between Almagro and Pizarro, Pizarro’s forces killed Almagro. However, these actions would soon come back to haunt Pizarro in 1541 when he was killed by followers of Almagro’s son (Townsend).

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