Famous Explorers
This explorer left Great Britain in 1497 and was the first European explorer to visit what we now call North America - if you don't count the Vikings
Who was John Cabot?
Avast! This is not a piratey word, but a term used to describe a disease brought on from lack of Vitamin C
What is scurvy?
Columbus never "discovered" America, no matter what your elementary school teacher told you - but he did sail the ocean blue in this year
What is 1492?
This man was the emperor of the Aztec Empire during the time of Spanish colonization
Who was Montezuma?
This rocky peninsula in Southern Africa was given this optimistic name because its discovery opened the sea route to the East
What is the Cape of Good Hope?
This explorer was the first European to make it to the southern part of Africa by ship, and completing what Columbus tried to do in 1492 - getting to India
Who was Vasco de Gama?
This exploratory word means to go all the way around something, especially all the way around the world
What is circumnavigate?
Columbus never made it to what we now call America, instead landing in this country
What is Hispaniola (Dominican Republic)?
This man was the leader of the Spanish expedition which ultimately destroyed the Aztec people
Who was Hernan Cortes?
This Asian city was the final destination of Vasco de Gama, and is still a major city in modern-day India
What is Calicut (or Calcutta)?
This is the man whom both North and South America are named for, after a map maker labeled the New World for him on a map in 1507
Who was Amerigo Vespucci?
This person makes maps, including the first world maps in the 16th century
What is a cartographer?
When Columbus realized that the indigenous people did not have gold or spices, he instead decided that this was the best use for the island people he made contact with
What is enslavement?
The Aztecs believed that this god created humans, and was prophesied to return to Earth in human form around the same time that the Spaniards arrived
Who was Quetzalcoatl?
This Southeast Asian country is where Ferdinand Magellan met his untimely end
Where is the Philippines?
This man's crew was the first to sail around the globe - although he died in the Philippines before making it all the way back to Spain
Who was Ferdinand Magellan?
This nautical device was useful for explorers to determine latitude while at sea
What is an astrolab?
This term is named after Columbus, which refers to the transfer of plants, animals, culture, human population, technology, and diseases between the New World and the Old World
What is the Columbian Exchange?
During the Spanish conquest, the Aztecs began dying from this disease, brought by the Spanish conquistadors to the New World
What is smallpox?
This imaginary border which runs north and south was established by Pope Alexander VI to determine which lands Spain and Portugal could explore and conquer
What was the Line of Demarcation (of 1494)?
This man was the second captain of La Victoria, the first ship to sail all the way around the world
Who was Juan Sebastian El Cano?
This 1494 agreement between Spain and Portugal divided newly discovered lands between the two countries and gave them the "authority" to colonize spaces already inhabited by millions of indigenous peoples
What is the Treaty of Tordesillas?
After several people in Europe did not believe that Columbus had ever made it to India, he embarked on a fourth voyage to prove it - instead he landed in this country
What is Panama?
Historians believe that as much as this many Aztecs died during contact with the Spanish, considered the largest genocide in human history
What is 90%?
Once the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán had fallen, Cortés began building this city on the ruins
What is Mexico City?