June 7: Today is the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal in 1494 by which both divided the New World between the two.

A modification of the papal Bull of Demarcation issued in 1493 by Pope Alexander VI, the Treaty of Tordesillas (June 7, 1494) divided the recently discovered New World between its two signatories, Spain and Portugal.

Tordesillas is currently the province of Valladolid, Spain. The treaty divided the newly discovered lands from 1492 onwards in what they called "Antilia and Cipango by Christopher Columbus (Cuba and the Hispaniola, now Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

Map of the Treaty of Tordesillas

The division extends 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, head of the West African coast already conquered by Portugal.

June 7, 1494: Agreement between Spain and Portugal aimed at settling conflicts over lands explored by voyagers of the late 15th century. In 1493 Pope Alexander VI had granted Spain all the lands west of a line 100 leagues (about 320 miles) west of the Cape Verde Islands, in return for an agreement to Christianize the peoples of the New World; Portuguese expeditions were to keep to the east. At Tordesillas (a village in Spain), ambassadors from Spain and Portugal moved that line west, thereby allowing Portugal to claim Brazil when it was discovered in 1500.

The territories to the East would belong to Portuga,l and the West to the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon (Spain).

That is, the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the Atlantic Ocean by a line from the North Pole to the South Pole, 370 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands, corresponding to the eastern hemisphere to Portugal and the Western Hemisphere to the Crown of Castile Aragon.