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An Abbreviated History of Ocean Travel and Exploration

An Abbreviated History of Ocean Travel and Exploration. The First Explorers. 4000 B.C.: Egyptians sail along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. 1500 B.C. Phoenicians Developed navigation First to sail outside the Mediterranean Sea: to Britain, North Africa, Indian Ocean, and the Red Sea

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An Abbreviated History of Ocean Travel and Exploration

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  1. An Abbreviated History of Ocean Travel and Exploration

  2. The First Explorers • 4000 B.C.: Egyptians sail along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. • 1500 B.C. Phoenicians • Developed navigation • First to sail outside the Mediterranean Sea: to Britain, North Africa, Indian Ocean, and the Red Sea • Founded first fishing ports • Traveled mainly for trade with other civilizations

  3. Phoenicia

  4. Polynesians • 1500-1000 B.C.: Explored South Pacific (though some evidence suggests they may have began exploring as many as 30,000 years ago!) • Colonized Samoa, Tonga, Easter Island, Fiji, and the Hawaiian Islands. • Why did they explore? • Overpopulation • Depletion of resources • Political tensions • Religious strife.

  5. Polynesians Continued • How would these early ocean explorers know where to find land in a vast sea if they had never been there before? Remember that they don’t have GPS, a compass, or even a map. • Marine Life • Smells (believe it or not, land has a unique smell from things like flowers). • Bird migration patterns (probably most important) • Stars

  6. Greeks • 900-700 B.C.: Begin to explore outside Mediterranean. • Thought that the Mediterranean was surrounded by land, which was surrounded by a circling river called Oceanus. • 600 B.C. Pythagoreans assume a spherical Earth. • 450 B.C. Herodotus produced first map of the Mediterranean.

  7. Greeks Continued • 325 B.C. Alexander the Great establishes the Library of Alexandria in Egypt. • Every ships log put in library • Maps were drawn from logs • Developed trade and art. • Library was burned in 415 AD. • 235-192 B.C. Eratosthenes estimates circumference of Earth using geometry. He estimates 39,350 kM. Actual is 40, 067 kM. • 127-51 B.C. Ptolemy produced the first world atlas called Geographica. Mis-calculated circumference.Columbus used this map to get to East Indies. What do you think happened?

  8. Vikings • 700-1000 AD. • Voyaged to seek adventure and treasure. • Superior shipbuilders and navigators. • First to sail to North America.

  9. Famous Vikings • Erik the Red: Sailed from Iceland and discovered Greenland. • Leif Eriksson: Son of Erik the Red. Sailed from Greenland in 1002 AD and reached North America (Canada) 500 years before Columbus. • Some say that American colonists reported seeing Native Americans with blonde hair and blue eyes, but this may just be myth.

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