Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Word of Columbus's exploits spread quickly, sparking the Western European exploration, conquest, and colonization of the Americas. The Discovery of America ( Johann Moritz Rugendas ). Spanish explorers, conquerors, and settlers sought material wealth, prestige, and the spread of Christianity , often summed up in the phrase "gold, glory, and God ...
From the early 15th century to the early 17th century the Age of Discovery had, through Portuguese seafarers, and later, Spanish, Dutch, French and English, opened up southern Africa, the Americas (New World), Asia and Oceania to European eyes: Bartholomew Dias had sailed around the Cape of southern Africa in search of a trade route to India; Christopher Columbus, on four journeys across the ...
European powers employed sailors and geographers to map and explore North America with the goal of economic, religious and military expansion. The combative and rapid nature of this exploration is the result of a series of countering actions by neighboring European nations to ensure no single country had garnered enough wealth and power from ...
The Silk Road and spice trade routes which the Ottoman Empire later expanded its use of in 1453 and onwards, spurring European exploration to find alternative sea routes Marco Polo's travels (1271–1295) A prelude to the Age of Discovery was a series of European expeditions crossing Eurasia by land in the late Middle Ages. [43]
Religious zeal played a large role in Spanish and Portuguese overseas activities. While the Pope himself was a political power to be heeded (as evidenced by his authority to decree whole continents open to colonization by particular kings), the Church also sent missionaries to convert the indigenous peoples of other continents to the Catholic faith.
Most scholars accepted Ptolemy's correct assessment that the terrestrial landmass (for Europeans of the time, comprising Eurasia and Africa) occupied 180 degrees of the terrestrial sphere, and dismissed Columbus's claim that the Earth was much smaller and that Asia was only a few thousand nautical miles to the west of Europe.
Europeans also left deep genetic marks on the inhabitants of the Americas and most of today's Americans trace their ancestry wholly or partially to Europe. The European percentage of gene background is around 84% in Uruguay; 79% in Argentina; 72% in Cuba; 71% in Brazil; 63% in Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Colombia; 57% in Chile; 41% ...
1496: Santo Domingo, the first European permanent settlement, is built. [7] 1497: John Cabot reaches Newfoundland. [8] 1498: In his third voyage, Columbus reaches Trinidad and Tobago. 1498: La Isabela is abandoned by the Spanish. 1499: João Fernandes Lavrador maps Labrador and Newfoundland