European Exploration: c. 1450 - c. 1750
AP Concept: 4.1 Globalizing Networks of Communication and Exchange
Key Concepts
New Technology
Europeans also developed their own technology that helped with navigation, such as the Portuguese caravel - useful for maneuvering the challenging winds and waters off west Africa
Europeans used advances in military technology to conquer territories and establish footholds once they reached their destination
Used gunpowder from China in large and small cannons, which could be mounted in ships
Exploration
Key Concepts
- European technological innovations built on classical, Islamic, and Asian maritime technologies, allowing maritime exploration and reconnaissance
- Trade and cultural exchange introduced Europeans to the following maritime technologies:
- Magnetic compass - allowed them to determine latitude
- Sternpost rudder - improved steering capabilities
- Triangular lateen sail - improved maneuverability
- Through exploration, Europeans hoped to discover new resources and trade routes to lucrative Asian markets, and to spread Christianity
- Portugal led European exploration beginning in the 1450s
- Established trading posts and sugarcane plantations along the West African coast
- Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of Africa in 1488
- Vasco da Gama became the first European mariner to reach the Indian Ocean in 1498, and established a Portuguese foothold in the lucrative Indian Ocean trade network
- Spain became another key player in European exploration, beginning in the late 1400s
- Christopher Columbus sailed west in an attempt to find a new trade route to Asia, but instead landed in the Bahamas in 1492
- His discovery opened the so-called "New World" (the Americas) to European exploration, colonization, and exploitation
- Ferdinand Magellan sailed around South America to the Philippine Islands between 1519 and 1520; after he was killed, his crew finished traveling back to Europe through the Indian Ocean and became the first to circumnavigate the globe in 1522
- Other European powers entered the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean in order to take part in the lucrative trade networks at the end of the 16th century
- English explorers began searching for a Northwest Passage through North America, beginning with Martin Frobisher's failed expedition from 1576-8
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