Spanish Flag

Circa: 1492 A.D.

Red and Grey with gold castles and lions.
Spanish flag at the time of Columbus's voyages. (C2)

The earliest Spanish flag was an ornate combination of emblems of Spain's two provinces in 1492 - Castile and Leon. The red section represents the color of Castile and the grey represents Leon. After 1516, the banner was replaced by one using white instead of grey.

Columbus never set foot upon the continent of North America. He landed first on the island of San Salvador, now one of the Bahaman Islands. On his third voyage in 1498, he did land in South America near present-day Trinidad, Venezuela.

The first flag to fly over North America was the English, Cross of St. George flag, flown by John Cabot in 1497.

The Spanish explorer, Ponce de Leon, was the first Spaniard to set foot on the mainland on Easter Sunday in 1512. He named the country Florida after "Pascua Florida", the Easter Season.

Other early explorers, who carried the Spanish flag were Balboa who was the first Spaniard to see the Pacific Ocean from the west, Coronado, Hernando de Soto, Cabrillo, and Merendez.