John III of Portugal

John III inherited Portugal in 1521, son of Manuel I and a Spanish princess descended from Ferdinand and Isabella. He pulled back from North Africa's Muslim strongholds and pivoted hard east and west: fortifying Goa, locking down the clove and nutmeg monopoly from the Maluku Islands, pushing colonization deeper into Brazil. His captains made first contact with Japan. He courted the Baltic and Rhineland to grease the trade routes. By the time he died in June 1557, thirty-six years into the job, the Portuguese flag flew on four continents and the empire had gone global.