Lesson 1-2

The Age of Exploration

​

​

Lesson 1-2 / The Age of Exploration

Big Idea:

As trade routes developed across the globe, European explorers crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas.

​

Essential Questions

1. How did the Commercial Revolution lead to a growing interest in exploration among European nations?

2. What enabled the transAtlantic exploration of the Americas?

3. How did the Columbian Exchange affect people on both sides of the Atlantic?

Vocabulary 1-2

Commercial Revolution - a great change in the European

economy

joint-stock companies – businesses in which a group of people invest together

Northwest Passage – a water route through North American that would let ships sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific

Columbian Exchange – the transfer of plants, animals, and

diseases between the “Old World” and the Americas.

​

​

• Economic Growth in Europe

During the Commercial Revolution of the 1200s, the way people did business changed dramatically

• Many European cities became rich specializing in certain crafts
• Cities trading in goods from faraway lands in Asia and Africa became wealthy trading centers
• From Asia came silk and spices
• From Africa came gold, ivory, salt, and slaves
• ​

Venice, Italy

Check for Understanding

What was the Commercial Revolution?

How did it affect European cities?

Why did European merchants want to trade with Africa and Asia?

What valuable trade goods came from these areas?

​

​

II. Rising Merchant Class

• Wealth became the best way to improve status and power
• Merchants created joint-stock companies, or businesses in which a group of people invest together

- Profits/losses were shared

- Single investors

better protected

Check for Understanding

Why did wealth become more important in European society during this time?

What is a joint-stock company?

How do joint-stock companies protect individual investors?

III. The Search for New Routes

• Overland routes, such as the Silk Road, were dangerous, difficult, and expensive to travel
• European merchants began to search for a sea route
• Direct access would increase profits and reduce risks

​

IV. Navigational �Tools

New technology also allowed explorers to cross the open ocean

​

Magnetic Compass

Instrument that uses a magnetized needle that points north. Invented by the Chinese more than 2,000 years ago.

Astrolabe

Measured the altitude of a heavenly body above the horizon.

Hourglass

Measures time

Back-Staff or Quadrant

Measured the angle of the sun to the horizon. This improved instrument meant that mariners no longer had to stare into the sun.

Cross-Staff

Measured the angle of the sun to the horizon.

Cicero © 2007

Check for Understanding

Why did European merchants want to find a sea route to Africa and Asia?

How new technologies lead to sea exploration?

V. Portuguese Explorations

• Portugal became a leader in exploration in the 1400s.
• Bartolomeu Dias led an expedition around the southern tip of Africa in 1497.
• Vasco da Gama followed to southwestern India the next year.
• He established a trading colony there.

Da Gama

​

Da Gama

VI. Christopher Columbus Sails West

• Columbus was convinced he could reach Asia by sailing west across the Atlantic Ocean.
• With funding from Spain, he set out with 3 ships in August 3, 1492.
• On October 12 he landed in what he thought was Japan, but was in fact an island in the Bahamas.
• Columbus established a Spanish outpost in the West Indies for the purpose of discovering gold.

Columbus went on to make three more voyages to the New World.

Cicero © 2007

Check for Understanding

Who was Christopher Columbus, and what was different about his voyages?

Where did Columbus intend to land, and where did he, in fact, land in 1492?

Martin Waldseemuller’s 1507 Map

Cicero © 2007

This is the first known map to label the New World as America.

VII. Other Explorers Set Sail

• In 1501 Amerigo Vespucci led an expedition to South America; the continents of North and South America were given his name by a German mapmaker.
• Spanish Conquistadors followed, eventually conquering the native Aztec and Inca civilizations and bringing gold and other riches back to Europe

Aztec Temple

Vespucci

Check for Understanding

• How did the continents of North and South America get their names?
• What were the Spanish conquistadors looking for?
• What effect did the Spanish conquistadors have on the Aztec and Incan civilizations?

​

VIII. Circumnavigating the Globe

• In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan set out with a Spanish fleet to sail to Asia across the “Southern Ocean.” Three years later, one of the 5 ships returned, having made the 40,000 mile journey around the world.
• Magellan was killed during the journey in what is now the Philippines

​

Check for Understanding

What was Magellan the first to do in 1519?

IX. The Search for a Northwest Passage

• Other European nations turned to North America, hoping to discover a Northwest Passage, or water route through the American Continent, linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
• French explorer Champlain explored Canada to the Great Lakes and established a colony that he named Quebec.
• Henry Hudson explored present-day New York for the Dutch, leading to the establish of fur-trading outposts.

Champlain

Hudson

Check for Understanding

• What is the Northwest Passage?
• Why were Europeans looking for it?
• What North American resource did the Dutch profit from?

X. Columbian Exchange

• Explorers brought plants, animals, and diseases to the “New World.”
• European horses, cattle, and pigs soon ran wild
• Natives used these animals, as well as European wheat and barley.
• Europeans brought back plants, animals, gold, and silver.

​

The First Globalization Chart

To The Americas

To Europe & Africa

Cicero

History Beyond The Textbook

Cicero © 2007

At A Glance

Impact of Disease on Native Americans

Native Americans had no immunities to the many diseases that Europeans brought with them

• influenza, typhus, measles, malaria, diphtheria and whooping cough.
• As many as 20 million Native Americans were killed by these diseases.
• Spanish historian Fernandez de Oviedo wrote in 1548 that of the estimated 1 million who lived on the island of Hispaniola in 1492, “there are not now believed to be at the present time…five hundred persons (left).”

​

Check for Understanding

What was the Columbian Exchange?

What were its positives?

What were its negatives?