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Towns where history-changing agreements were signed

22 August 2026 · Explorer expedition

Each stop lent its name to a pact that redrew the map — dividing a newly found world, ending wars between empires, and carving up a continent's future.

The five stops

Stop 1 · Spain

Tordesillas

The 1494 treaty moved the Pope's dividing line 370 leagues west of Cape Verde — which is why Brazil speaks Portuguese and the rest of South America Spanish.

Stop 2 · France

Versailles

The 1919 treaty was signed in the Hall of Mirrors on 28 June — five years to the day after the Sarajevo assassination that started the war.

Stop 3 · Ukraine

Yalta

Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met at the Livadia Palace in February 1945 to settle occupied Germany's fate and redraw Poland — decisions that hardened into the Cold War map.

Stop 4 · Japan

Shimonoseki

The 1895 treaty ended the First Sino-Japanese War and ceded Taiwan to Japan. The strait beside it still funnels hundreds of ships a day between the Sea of Japan and the Inland Sea.

Stop 5 · United States

Camp David

The 1978 accords here led to the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty and Nobel Prizes for Sadat and Begin. The retreat has hosted summits from Khrushchev's visit in 1959 to the G8.

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