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This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 23 January 2025. Leif Erikson (c. 970 – c. 1020) was a famous Norse explorer who is credited for being the first European to set foot on American soil. Explorers are listed below with their common names, countries of origin (modern and former), centuries of activity and main areas of exploration. Marco ...
1826 – Scottish explorer Alexander Gordon Laing becomes the first European to reach the fabled city of Timbuktu, but is murdered upon leaving the city. [99] 1827 – Jedediah Smith crosses the Sierra Nevada (via Ebbetts Pass) and the Great Basin. [29] 1828 – French explorer René Caillié is the first European to return alive from Timbuktu.
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]
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". [18]
Viking expansion was the historical movement which led Norse explorers, traders and warriors, the latter known in modern scholarship as Vikings, to sail most of the North Atlantic, reaching south as far as North Africa and east as far as Russia, and through the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople and the Middle East, acting as looters, traders, colonists and mercenaries.
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 ...
The period of European contact of Ceylon began with the arrival of Portuguese soldiers and explorers of the expedition of Lourenço de Almeida, the son of Francisco de Almeida, in 1505. [59] The Portuguese founded a fort at the port city of Colombo in 1517 and gradually extended their control over the coastal areas and inland.
He then led a voyage into the Red Sea, the first ever made by a European fleet. 1513: Jorge Álvares is the first European to land in China at Tamão in the Zhujiang (Pearl River) estuary. 1516–1517: Rafael Perestrello, a cousin of Christopher Columbus, leads a small Portuguese trade mission to Canton (Guangzhou), then under the Ming Dynasty.