Transcript The Age Of Exploration - White Plains Public Schools

Global History I: Spiconardi
THE AGE OF EXPLORATION
REASONS FOR EUROPEAN EXPLORATION: GOD,
GLORY, & GOLD!

Crusades

Exposed Europeans to
the goods of the far
east
 Increased
demand of
spices and silk

Fall of the Byzantine
Empire (________)

European merchants
wanted to find new
routes around Muslim
controlled territories
REASONS FOR EUROPEAN EXPLORATION: GOD,
GLORY, & GOLD!

Desire for new sources of wealth
 Commercial
Revolution increased reliance on gold
and silver
 Monarchs needed to finance continual wars and
conflicts in Europe
 In
particular Spain
REASONS FOR EUROPEAN EXPLORATION: GOD,
GLORY, & GOLD!


Desire to Spread Christianity
Advancements in Science & Technology




Improved geographic knowledge & cartography
Magnetic Compass
Astrolabe Instrument used to figure out latitude
at seas
Bigger, better, and faster ships  explorers could
sail across or against the wind
EARLY EXPLORERS AND ENCOUNTERS


Portugal took the lead in European exploration
Prince Henry “The Navigator”

Encouraged Portuguese exploration through a navigation
school for cartographers, shipbuilders, sea captains and
scientists
EARLY EXPLORERS AND ENCOUNTERS

Bartolomeu Dias
 First
European
Explorer to sail to
the tip of Africa
known as the Cape
of Good Hope.
Could not continue
to India due to a
storm that
destroyed his fleet.
EARLY EXPLORERS AND ENCOUNTERS

Vasco da Gama  First European to sail
around the Cape of Good Hope and make it
to India
 Legacy
 Completed
longest recorded sea voyage to that
point in history
 Established Portugal as a trade empire for
centuries
 Ruthless Methods  Killed Muslim merchants
and sacked Indian City of Calicut when he
didn’t like the trade deals he was offered.
EARLY EXPLORERS AND ENCOUNTERS

Spain  Inspired by the Portuguese to
establish their own trade empire
 Isabella
& Ferdinand  “Queen and King of Spain”
who wanted to gain a share of the rich spice trade
and spread Christianity (especially Isabella)
EARLY EXPLORERS AND ENCOUNTERS

Cristoforo Colombo


Believed he could reach India by sailing west across the
Atlantic
Reached Caribbean in 1492, but believed he reached India
until the day he died
EARLY EXPLORERS AND ENCOUNTERS

Cristoforo Colombo
 Great
Man or Villian?
 Opened
the Americas to colonization
 Precipitated the Columbian Exchange (Three continent
cultural diffusion)
 Enslaved Native Indians
 Purposely killed Indians and spread small pox
 Leads to European imperialism

Imperialism  one country dominating the politics, economics,
and culture of another country or people
EARLY EXPLORERS AND ENCOUNTERS

Why is Columbus credited with “discovering” America?
•Writes the The Life and
Voyages of Christopher
Columbus
•Book is romantic
history
•Claims Columbus
reached America
•Claims Europeans
thought Earth was
flat
Washington Irving
EARLY EXPLORERS AND ENCOUNTERS

Ferdinand Magellan  led the first expedition
that successfully circumnavigated (sail around
the world)
 Magellan
is killed in the Philippines, so he never
circumnavigates (only 18 of his men make it)
EUROPEANS COMPETE FOR COLONIES

Treaty of Tordesillas
EUROPEANS COMPETE FOR COLONIES

Treaty of Tordesillas
Spain & Portugal argue over land claims
in the “New World”
 Pope Alexander VI brokers a deal in
which Spain gets the Americas, while
Portugal would get Brazil (upon it’s
discovery in 1500) and the west coast
of Africa
 Europeans establish colonies in the
“New World,” Africa, and Asia
