French explorer Jacques Cartier plants a cross on the Gaspé Peninsula and takes possession of the territory in the name of Francis I of France.
Francis I (French: Franois Ier; Middle French: Francoys; 12 September 1494 31 March 1547) was King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulme, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his first cousin once removed and father-in-law Louis XII, who died without a son.
A prodigious patron of the arts, he promoted the emergent French Renaissance by attracting many Italian artists to work for him, including Leonardo da Vinci, who brought the Mona Lisa with him, which Francis had acquired. Francis' reign saw important cultural changes with the growth of central power in France, the spread of humanism and Protestantism, and the beginning of French exploration of the New World. Jacques Cartier and others claimed lands in the Americas for France and paved the way for the expansion of the first French colonial empire.
For his role in the development and promotion of the French language, he became known as le Pre et Restaurateur des Lettres (the 'Father and Restorer of Letters'). He was also known as Franois au Grand Nez ('Francis of the Large Nose'), the Grand Colas, and the Roi-Chevalier (the 'Knight-King') for his personal involvement in the wars against his great rival Emperor Charles V, who was also King of Spain.
Following the policy of his predecessors, Francis continued the Italian Wars. The succession of Charles V to the Burgundian Netherlands, the throne of Spain, and his subsequent election as Holy Roman Emperor, meant that France was geographically encircled by the Habsburg monarchy. In his struggle against Imperial hegemony, Francis sought the support of Henry VIII of England at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. When this was unsuccessful, he formed a Franco-Ottoman alliance with the Muslim sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, a controversial move for a Christian king at the time.
Jacques Cartier (UK: KAR-tee-ay, also US: KAR-tee-AY, kar-TYAY, French: [ʒak kaʁtje], Quebec French: [- kaʁt͡sje]; Breton: Jakez Karter; 31 December 1491 – 1 September 1557) was a French-Breton maritime explorer for France. Jacques Cartier was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas" after the Iroquoian names for the two big settlements he saw at Stadacona (Quebec City) and at Hochelaga (Montreal Island).