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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 naval exploration mapped the western and northern coasts of Australia, but the east coast had to wait for over a century. Eighteenth-century British explorer James Cook mapped much of Polynesia and traveled as far north as Alaska and as far south as the Antarctic Circle.
It started in the early 15th century and lasted until the 17th century. In that period, Europeans discovered and/or explored vast areas of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Portugal and Spain dominated the first stages of exploration, while other European nations followed, such as England, France, and the Netherlands.
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.
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.
Ancient DNA helps explain why northern Europeans have a higher risk of multiple sclerosis than other ancestries: It’s a genetic legacy of horseback-riding cattle herders who swept into the ...
The European lifestyle included a long history of sharing close quarters with domesticated animals such as cows, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, dogs and various domesticated fowl, from which many diseases originally stemmed. In contrast to the indigenous people, the Europeans had developed a richer endowment of antibodies. [64]