Francisco Pizarro

Francisco Pizarro was a Spanish conquistador born in Trujillo, Extremadura. The illegitimate son of an infantry captain, he crossed to the Americas around 1502 and joined early expeditions; in 1509 he left Hispaniola to join Alonso de Ojeda's venture to Urabá, and he later served as second-in-command to Vasco Núñez de Balboa on the 1513 march that reached the Pacific. From Panama he led voyages down the South American coast in the 1520s. In 1532 his company captured the Inca ruler Atahualpa at Cajamarca, collected a large ransom, and executed him on 26 July 1533; the Spanish then took Cusco. Pizarro founded Lima in 1535 and governed the new territory of Peru. Amid conflict among the conquerors, he was killed by supporters of Diego de Almagro the Younger (the Almagrist faction, rallying behind the son of Pizarro's former partner, who had himself been executed in 1538) on 26 June 1541.