Changing World
What valuable Asian goods made Europeans interested in trade with Asia?
Spices, silk, jewels, and other luxury goods.
What tool helped sailors determine direction even when they could not see land?
The compass
Which European country led early efforts to find a sea route around Africa?
Portugal
In what year did Christopher Columbus begin his famous voyage across the Atlantic?
1492
What Viking explorer reached North America around the year 1000?
Leif Eriksson.
What was the Renaissance?
A “rebirth” of interest in learning, art, science, and classical ideas.
What invention allowed books and information to spread much faster?
The printing press.
Who established a center for exploration around 1420?
Prince Henry the Navigator
Which country paid for Columbus’s 1492 voyage?
Spain
What agreement divided newly claimed lands between Spain and Portugal?
The Treaty of Tordesillas.
Whose book about travels in Asia helped increase European interest in exploration?
Marco Polo
What navigation tool used the position of stars to help sailors determine latitude?
The astrolabe.
Which explorer sailed around the southern tip of Africa in 1488?
Bartolomeu Dias
Name Columbus’s three ships.
The Niña, Pinta, and Santa María
Which explorer realized that South America was a separate continent rather than part of Asia?
Amerigo Vespucci
Why did Europeans want to find their own sea route to Asia?
To avoid middlemen and get Asian goods more cheaply.
What type of Portuguese ship was fast, sturdy, and able to sail into shallow water?
The caravel.
Which Portuguese explorer reached India by sailing around Africa?
Vasco da Gama
Where did Columbus believe he had arrived in 1492?
Islands near Asia, which he called the Indies
Which explorer became the first European to see the Pacific Ocean from the Americas?
Vasco Núñez de Balboa
Name three changes that helped begin the Age of Exploration.
New technology, stronger European kingdoms, Renaissance ideas, increased trade, or desire for Asian goods.
How did improved maps make exploration safer and easier?
They provided better information about coastlines, ocean currents, latitude, and sailing routes.
Which Portuguese explorer reached Brazil in 1500 and claimed it for Portugal?
Pedro Álvares Cabral
What major mistake caused Columbus to believe sailing west to Asia would be a relatively short trip?
He greatly underestimated the size of the world and the distance to Asia.
Whose expedition became the first to circumnavigate the world, even though its leader died before the journey was completed?
Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition