European Explorers

Portugal Takes the Lead• Starting in the 1400s Portugal began to actively

expand their trade

• Prince Henry 1415- began a school for navigation invited…

-astronomers -mapmakers

-mathematicians-ship builders

Bartolomeu Dias 1488 -first to round the southern tip of Africa

Vasco Da Gama 1498first to sail around Africa and find a sea route to Asia

Pedro Cabral- 1500 -1501while sailing to India, discovered South America and claimed it

for Portugal continued on to sail to India

Here Comes Spain

Spain was determined to be a powerful country.

They wanted to beat Portugal to control the trade of Asia.

Christopher Columbus 1492 convinced that it was shorter to reach Asia by sailing west

Christopher Columbus 1492

• Arrived in the Caribbean Sea thinking that he was in the Indies of Asia. (Indonesia)

• Given the credit of discovering the NEW WORLD

(although he always believed he reached Asia)

Amerigo Vespucci • At the request of Portugal’s king, went

to observe expeditions across the Atlantic.

• Wrote about these expeditions and differed with Columbus that this land mass did not match that of Asia and that it indeed was part of a new continent!

• From his writings, mapmakers began labeling the new continents America

in his honor.

• convinced that by sailing west he could find a waterway through this new world and still reach Asia.

• Found the southern tip of South America. Sailed across the Pacific Ocean.

• Magellan Died in a battle in the Philippines.

• Only 18 sailors made it back.

• They had circumnavigated the globe

Ferdinand Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan 1519- 1521

Europe Explores North America

Discovery of the New World led to…• new goals• new ambitions• and new countries enter the race

John Cabot 1497

• Sailed for England• believed he could reach Asia by

sailing northwest across the Atlantic• He explored the area of Canada and

thought it was part of Asia. • He claimed it for England.

John Cabot 1497

Giovanni da Verrazano 1524

• Sailed for France• explored the east coast of North America • made the first claims for France• His discoveries improved the maps that would

be used by explorers who came after him.

Giovanni da Verrazano 1524

Henry Hudson 1609

• Sailed for the Netherlands • He explored for a Northwest

Passage.• Claimed lands around the Hudson

River for Dutch. (Today New York City)

Henry Hudson 1609

Henry Hudson 1610

• Sailed for England• tried again to find the Northwest

Passage. • Claimed lands around Hudson Bay

for England.

Henry Hudson 1610