24/7/1544 - Town assaulted and taken by French corsair Roberto Ball, with assistance from renegade ex French citizen. Only one Frenchman is wounded. Plunder totals 35,000 pesos plus 2500 pesos from the Royal stores and 2000 pesos in tribute.
8/1572 - Francis Drake captures a 240ton merchant ship outside the harbour. The town has a fort with cannon.
8/1572 - Drake returns and takes minor prizes, has a run in with 2 frigates and is forced to sink his prizes. An infantry captain in town is named Martin de Mendoza. Running out of food Drake moves on to Santa Marta
3/1/1573 - Flota arrives in Nombre Dios
11/4/1559 - attacked by French under Cote. Defended by 10 harquebusiers, 20 horsemen, plus residents and 500 indian archers. Attacked by 1000 corsairs. The outnumbered defenders eventually retreated, leaving the French to plunder th etown. They did not receive much booty, and took a tribute for the town.
1568 - John Hawkins arrives at Cartagena, to find the Spanish in the process of building two fortifications - El Boqueron and La Caleta. The towns Governor was Martin de las. Through some trickery of the defenders, who had only 2 cannon and a few soldeirs, Hawkins gave up his seige of the town after 8 days.
1585 - Governed by Pedro Fernandez de Bustos who put togteher a force of 54 mounted men, 450 harqebusiers, 100 pikemen and 20 negros armed with blunderbusses supported by 400 indian archers. The fort of El Boqueron had been completed, but El Caleta was unfinished. Drake assaulted the city and took it after the indians and negros took flight.