CHAPTER 17: SECTION 1: EARLY EXPLORATIONS

Age of Exploration:

· Europeans eager for a direct trade route with Asia, for spices, began to look for quicker routes eastward.

· Mid-1300s, Europeans considered sea routes to Asia.

· Reasons for the “Age of Exploration”:

1. Merchants seek a profitable trade with Asia

2. Church leaders sought to halt the expansion of Islam

3. Spread the Christian teachings

· Explorations would end Europe’s isolation and would prepare the way for the rise of the world’s first global age

Technology of Exploration

Open water sailing required sailors to be trained in navigation, accurate maps, and oceangoing ships.

· Compass, of Chinese orgin, enabled sailors to determine geographical direction.

· Astrolabe was able to determine the altitude of the sun

· Maps created by cartographers were charted from lands found only in rumors. However, by the 1300s maps were beginning to be drawn with better accuracy.

o Ptolemy (Hellenistic astronomer), his ancient maps were improved to show a better picture of Europe. He also introduced a grid system.

· Improvement on ship building. Ships used triangle-shaped lateen sails.

· European (1400s) created caravel, ships able to venture up shallow inlets and to beach the ship to make repairs.

DIVIDING THE WORLD

· 1493; The pope drew a line of demarcation (an imaginary line running down the middle of the Atlantic from the North Pole to the South Pole).

· Spain controlled all lands to the west of the line.

· Portugal controlled all lands to the east of the line.

· Portugal’s fear that Spain would take over their established Asian trade, they signed the Treaty of Tordesillas (an agreement to move the line of demarcation farther west).

· The treaty divided the unexplored world between only 2 powers!