AGE OF DISCOVERY

FIRST OCEANS ESCAPADES

• around 1 000 A.D. - the Vikings probably reached NA (Newfoundland) - it is set in sagas about Leif Ericson in Vinland

• 15^th century - the Portuguese organized the first overseas colonizing ventures:

• western coast of Africa (gold, ivory, slaves)

• Bartholomew Diaz (1488) - the 1^st European who sailed around the southernmost tip of the Africa

• the sea route to India was opened (land route was controlled by the Turks)

• 
  Vasco da Gama (1497 - 1499) sailed around Africa and reached India

• the rest of the Europe wanted to compete with Portugal

• Christopher Columbus - Italian explorer financed by Spain (the Crown of Castile)

• proposed reached the East Indies by sailing westward

• 1492 landed in Bahamas (San Salvador) but believed to have been in India

• ships: Santa Maria, Pinta (the painted) and Nina

• 1492-1503 - completed 4 voyages between Spain and America

NEW CONTINENT: AMERICA

• Amerigo Vespucci - Italian sailor and cartographer;

• Columbus died believing he had reached Asia

• Vespucci explored the coast of South America and in his letters (published at the beginning of the 16^th century) he declared the lands to be a new continent

• several years later a German scholar who was revising old maps of the world decided that Vespucci was right and to honour him called the land America

ENGLAND 1497: John Cabot - Italian sailor hired by the English king Henry VII (the Navigator) to find a passage to Asia reached Newfoundland and the Chesapeake Bay - later England claimed to have owned most of the east coast of NA FRANCE 1524: Giovanni Verrazano (Italy) - served the French king Francis I - sailed along the east coast of NA; 1534: Jacques Cartier (France) - explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the shores of the St. Lawrence River; in 1535 he reached the site of the present-day city of Montreal his escapades gave France a claim to what would later become Canada;

SPAIN 1519-21: Herman Cortes - conquered the Aztecs (Mexico) 1531-35: Francisco Pizarro - invaded and conquered the Incas - looted gold which flooded Europe (Spain) - economic consequences 1539 - 1543: Hernando de Soto (Spanish) - explored Florida and discovered the Mississippi River Francisco Coronado (Spain) - travelled north from Mexico as far as Kansas, was the first who see the Grand Canyon thanks to this Spain could claim large amount of land in NA established first-permanent European settlements there; 1565 - St. Augustine was founded in Florida (Ponce de Leon) 1609 - Santa Fe was founded in New Mexico

1494 - TREATY OF TORDESILLAS (Spain) was a treaty between Portugal and Spain in 1494 where they agreed to divide up all the land on the Earth (outside of Europe) between the two of them. Pope Alexander VI drew an imaginary line on the Atlantic giving: the east: Spain the east: Portugal

1529 - TREATY OF SARAGOSSA the line of demarcation the Pacific was set the Portuguese settled (and remained) in Brazil the two large Spanish kingdoms were established in America other European countries were totally ignored; they refused to conform hostility towards the papacy (the Borgios - Alexander VI) Protestant Reformation was approaching The Treaties become meaningless at the end of the 16^th century when the Spanish King was also a King of Portugal

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