The Age of Exploration

Essential Questions

• What kinds of new knowledge and technical accomplishments made it possible for Europeans to undertake great journeys of oceanic exploration in the 1400s?

• How and why did Europeans benefit in unique ways in their overseas explorations from the accomplishments of other civilizations?

• What motives did Europeans have for undertaking what were expensive and enormously risky overseas ventures?

• Why was it that Portugal and Spain, of all the European nations, led the way in the early phases of the Age of Exploration?

• Why were the Dutch, English, and French able to take the lead later in overseas imperial expansion?

• Why was the “Columbian Exchange” such a turning point in so many ways in world history, and why was it so much more beneficial for the Eastern Hemisphere than for the Western Hemisphere?

The Historical Setting for Exploration

• Europe wanted trade• World divided into

independent spheres• Limited previous

contact with the Americas had occurred

• Vikings

Vikings

Renaissance Ideas That Influenced Exploration

• Most educated men believed that the world was round

• There were certainly stories of other lands, but they were not focused on the Western Hemisphere

Economic Developments

• Trade routes expanded• Europeans developed a

taste for Asian goods• The development

of banking

The Royal Exchange, London

New Technology: Ships

• Caravels• Ship technology• Armaments

Caravel

New Technology: Navigation

• Astrolabe• Compass• Practical knowledge of

winds and currents

Astrolabe

Cartography: Early and Medieval Maps

Ptolemaic map

Jerusalem mapsMappa Mundi

Late Medieval and Renaissance Cartography

Portolan map Fra Mauro’s map

Cartography and Projection

• Hipparchus and Ptolemy

• Mercator