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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.
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]
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]
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 most populous emigration of the 17th century was that of the English, and after a series of wars with the Dutch and the French the English overseas possessions came to dominate the east coast of North America, an area stretching from Virginia northwards to New England and Newfoundland, although during the 17th century an even greater number ...
Later European exploration of North America resumed with Christopher Columbus's 1492 expedition sponsored by Spain. English settlement began almost a century later. Sir Walter Raleigh established the short-lived Roanoke Colony in 1585. The 1607 settlement of the Jamestown colony grew into the Colony of Virginia.
Major explorations of Earth continued after the Age of Discovery. By the early seventeenth century, vessels were sufficiently well built and their navigators competent enough to travel to virtually anywhere on the planet by sea. In the 17th century, Dutch explorers such as Willem Jansz and Abel Tasman explored the coasts of Australia.
The exploration of the Americas includes: Exploration of North America. Age of Discovery § Exploring North America; Timeline of the European colonization of North America; Colonial history of the United States; Exploration of South America. Age of Discovery#Inland Spanish expeditions (1519–1532) European colonization of the Americas