The Age of Exploration

1. The Age of Exploration

2. 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?

3. The Historical Setting for Exploration • Europe wanted trade • World divided into independent spheres • Limited previous contact with the Americas had occurred • Vikings Vikings

4. 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

5. Economic Developments • Trade routes expanded • Europeans developed a taste for Asian goods • The development of banking The Royal Exchange, London

6. New Technology: Ships • Caravels • Ship technology • Armaments Caravel

7. New Technology: Navigation • Astrolabe • Compass • Practical knowledge of winds and currents Astrolabe

8. Cartography: Early and Medieval Maps Ptolemaic map Jerusalem maps Mappa Mundi

9. Late Medieval and Renaissance Cartography Portolan map Fra Mauro’s map

10. Cartography and Projection • Hipparchus and Ptolemy • Mercator