Francisco Pizarro (c.1471-1541), Spanish conquistador and explorer. Pizarro travelled with Vasco Nunez de Balboa on his 1513 expedition to cross the Isthmus of Panama. They were the first Europeans to reach the Pacific coast of the Americas. In 1533, Pizarro conquered the South American empire of the Incas. Pizarro accomplished this by killing the Emperor Atahuallpa and thousands of his men. After looting Cuzco, the Incan capital, Pizarro founded the city of Lima. It was in Lima that Pizarro was buried after he was assassinated by the son of a rival he had executed. Artwork from 'History of the Conquest of Peru' (1847).