Age of Discovery

Discovery, also known as the Age of Exploration, was a period in history starting in the 15th century and continuing into the early 17th century during which Europeans engaged in intensive exploration of the world, establishing direct contacts with Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania and mapping the planet. Historians often refer to the 'Age of Discovery'[1] as the pioneer Portuguese and Spanish long-distance maritime travels in search of alternative trade routes to "the Indies", moved by the trade of gold, silver and spices.[2]

Portuguese began systematically exploring the Atlantic in 1419 under the sponsorship of Prince Henry, entering the Indian Ocean in 1488. In 1492, racing to find a route to Asia, Spanish Catholic Kings funded Christopher Columbus’ plan to sail to the “west Indies” across the Atlantic. He landed in an uncharted continent, seen as a “new world” by Europeans –America. A treaty dividing East and West exploration areas between the two kingdoms was then signed. Vasco da Gama having reached India in 1498, Portuguese sailed eastward to the valuable “spice islands” in 1512, landing in China one year later. East and west exploration overlapped in 1522, when Ferdinand Magellan led the first circumnavigation sailing west, while Spanish conquistadors explored inland Americas. In 1595 Dutch, French and English, who had been exploring a northwest passage to Asia and were at war with the Spanish rulers, defied the Iberian monopoly on maritime trade exploring new routes north and into the Pacific Ocean, reaching Australia in 1606 and New Zealand in 1642. Meanwhile, from 1580-s to 1640-s Russians conquered and explored almost the whole of Siberia.

The Age of Discovery is seen as a bridge between the Middle Ages and the Modern era, along with its contemporary Renaissance movement, triggering the early modern period with the rise of European nation-states. Accounts from distant lands and maps spread with the help of the new printing press fed the rise of humanism and worldly curiosity, ushering in a new age of scientific and intellectual inquiry. European overseas expansion led to the rise of colonial empires, with the contact between the Old and New Worlds producing the Columbian Exchange: the wide transfer of plants, animals, foods, human populations (including slaves), communicable diseases, and culture between the Eastern and Western hemispheres, in one of the most significant global events concerning ecology, agriculture, and culture in history. European exploration spanned until accomplishing the global mapping of the world, resulting in a new world-view and distant civilizations acknowledging each other, reaching the most remote boundaries much later.


source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Discovery


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