During the fifteenth century on the remote far western end of the Eurasian landmass, the government of Portugal initiated a series of maritime explorations with profound implications for the entire world. Spain and other European powers soon followed suit. Their voyages down the coast of West Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope to India, and across the Atlantic to the Americas set in motion a pattern of European expansion that by 1900 had enveloped most of the peoples of the planet — with incalculable consequences that continue to echo to this day. In that epic process, the peoples of Europe and those of Africa, Asia, and the Americas encountered one another in new ways and often for the first time. Here we examine three of these early encounters and the impressions they generated. The limitations of available sources unfortunately dictate a largely Eurocentric focus, for we know much more about how Europeans experienced these encounters than we do about how the people they met experienced them. Everyone, however, shared an inability to imagine the enormously transforming, and often devastating, outcomes of these early interactions. But here our attention is focused on the initial moments of these historic encounters, pregnant as they were with implications for the future.