The Age of Exploration

Exploration has always been partly pushed on by curiosity, the desire to know what lies in the unknown. But in the 1400's the great impetus to exploration was trade. At that time, great quanities of spice were used to preserve and flavor meat in the winter, and Europe relied heavily on spices imported from the Spice Islands in the east. But the spices had to travel far and only at great expense. From the time of Prince Henry the Navigator, Portugese seamen were exploring the west coast of Africa, seeking a route to India. In 1487-1488, Bartholomew Dias became the first to sail around the Cape of Good Hope, and he helped to plan da Gama's expedition 10 years later. Da Gama rounded the cape and sailed across the Indian Ocean to Calicut, on the west coast of India. Before da Gama's succesful voyage,a navigator, Christopher Columbus, had persuaded Queen Isabella of Spain to finance an expedition to find a westward map to the Indies. Columbus was using ancient, inaccurate maps and believed the world to be smaller than it is. In 1492, he sailed across the Atlanic Ocean and discovered a group of islands he called the Indies. He believed this to be his goal. Columbus never realized he had found a whole new continent, even though a later explorer and a friend of his, Amerigo Vespucci, reported it must be so. Amerigo announced this in 1502, only 4 years before Columbus died. A German mapmaker pronounced that this 'new world' should be called America because Amerigo found it.

You are the to vist this page

Hernan Cortes

Ferdinand Magellan

Amerigo Vespucci

Story 1- Aztec Civilization

Story 2- Dias

Story 3- Hudson

Sign our Guest Book