1
In what year did Christopher Columbus sail across the Atlantic Ocean?
Answer: 1492
Where was Christopher Columbus born? (City/country)
Answer: Genoa, in present-day Italy
What was Columbus's Italian name?
Answer: Cristoforo Colombo
Which two Spanish monarchs financed Columbus's expedition?
Answer: King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I
What was the name of the largest ship in Columbus's expedition?
Answer: Santa María
Name one thing the sailors did NOT have on their journey.
Answer: GPS, radio, accurate maps, weather forecasts, or satellite navigation
Why did Columbus want to sail west?
Answer: He wanted to find a shorter sea route to Asia.
What Asian goods did Europeans want? Name two.
Answer: Spices, silk, or porcelain
How could Europeans travel to Asia before Columbus?
Answer: They could travel overland along the Silk Road or by sea through the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean.
What did Columbus underestimate?
Answer: He underestimated the size of the Earth.
Who reportedly spotted land first?
Answer: Rodrigo de Triana
What did Columbus call the island he reached?
Answer: San Salvador
Which Indigenous people did Columbus encounter in the Caribbean?
Answer: The Taíno
Was the Caribbean an empty or uninhabited place when Columbus arrived?
Answer: No. Indigenous peoples had already lived there for thousands of years.
How did the Taíno initially react to the Europeans?
Answer: They welcomed them and traded with them.
What happened later between the Europeans and the Taíno?
The relationship became violent. Europeans took land, demanded gold, and forced people to work.
What are the four “G”s that explain some of Europe's motivations for exploration?
Answer: Gold, Goods/Trade, God, and Glory
Name one disease that Europeans brought to the Americas.
Answer: Smallpox, measles, or influenza
What is the exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and people between Europe and the Americas called?
Answer: The Columbian Exchange
Who was Amerigo Vespucci, and what did he argue in 1503?
Answer: He was an Italian explorer and writer who argued that the lands Columbus reached were not Asia, but a previously unknown continent.