Until the 16th Century when the first colonists came, Argentina partained to the Inca Civilization.

A small fleet left on August 8th, 1515 from the Andalusian port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda. The commander in charge was an experienced captain of the Spanish Fleet, whose name was Juan Díaz de Solís. The voyage was meant to last until a “connection” was found between the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. About six months later they reached Solis, and became the first Spanish seamen to touch the 200km large estuary mouth of Rio de la Plata. The date was February 2nd, 1516. Solis was, because of his premature death, not able to investigate the discovery further. Whilst exploring the beach and taking in capture some of the natives, he was killed by the Charrúa-Indians.

Therefore, Argentina was first discovered by European navigators. Their extremely aggressive way of taking over the land was a trend-setter for the centuries to come but with different outcome: most of the natives were either killed or kept as slaves.

Much earlier, in 5000 AC, Siberian hunters settled in Mexico and Peru, followed by the first agricultural colonies. Corn and potatoes were the main cultivation products. These settlements were later plundered by the Spanish Conquistadores. In the south lands, such as Argentina, no settlements of natives are recorded (with the exception of the Quilmes) which leads to the presumption, that the original civilisations discovered by the Spaniards, were tribes of hunter-gatherers.

Following the death of Solis, were a quick sequence of discoveries of the new land Argentina. During the search for a connection between the Atlantic to the Pacific, Fernao de Magalhaes discovered what is today known as the Straight of Magalhães, the very Straight which separates la Tierra de Fuego from the South American continent. A few years later, while searching for the legendary Tierra de Plata (Land of Silver) on the Río Paraná, two seamen, the Portuguese Alejo García and the Venetian Sebastián Caboto founded the Fortress Sanctí Spiritus near the Rosario, as a base for the Spanish settlement. After the destruction of the colony by natives, they both had to return 1529 to their home country Spain.

Finally, the establishment of Spanish settlers proved to be successful under the command and organisation of Pedro de Mendoza in 1535. The area they chose is were Buenos Aires stands today. The Argentinian towns of Córdoba, Salta, Santiago del Estero, Mendoza, Jujuy, La Rioja, San Luis and Tucumán were founded through expeditions organised from Chile and Peru. In the year 1543 Peru was conveyed to be vice-government over all the Spanish – South American Regions.

The formation of the Vice-Kingdom Río de la Plata in 1776, was to prevent a Portuguese invasion in the Spanish administrated areas and thus initiated an inexorable ascension of Buenos Aires. This former kingdom included what we know today as Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivien, the northern part of Argentina, small parts of Brazil and northern Chile. It was however, only an inferior treated offshoot of the Vice-Kingdom Peru.