A second attempt to reach the Solomons saw Mendaña sail from Callao in April 1595, with four ships and 378 souls.
Since it was a voyage of colonisation, Mendaña and others took their wives along for the excursion.
However, the Solomon Islands, discovered with such fanfare in 1568, could not be found since they could not calculate longitude accurately.
On the other hand, they did find the Marquesas and Santa Cruz, southeast of the Solomons, on a voyage characterised by conflict with the local people, mutiny, illness and starvation.
After Mendaña died at Santa Cruz, his wife took over, ordered the colony's abandonment, and made another attempt to find the Solomons.
Two ships were lost along the way, but their Portuguese pilot Pedro Fernandez de Quirós guided the survivors to Manila in February 1596.
In the meantime, the religious zeal that propelled Mendaña had rubbed off on Quirós. He returned to Spain via Mexico and spent the next six years attempting to raise finance for a follow-up expedition.
Eventually, he succeeded, and the third of these voyages, led by Quirós, with Luis Váez de Torres as pilot and second-in-command, directly connects to Australia.
The expedition departed Callao on 21 December 1605 with great enthusiasm, visited the Cook Islands and reached the New Hebrides on 1 May 1606.
Religious fervour ran rampant as Quiros founded the port of Vera Cruz, convinced he had reached Terra Australis, the new Promised Land. He named it La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo in honour of the Spanish royal house's Austrian Hapsburg lineage.