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Italian/Arab trading

Jan 1, 1400

"Italian and Arab merchants ran the trade with Asia. Other Europeans, envious of Italian wealth, began to look for different routes to Asia."
Excerpt from American History Beginnings Through Reconstruction page 27

Bartolomeu Dias

Jan 1, 1488

Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias sailed around the tip of Africa (Cape of Good Hope.) Dias named it this since they had hoped to have found a water route to Asia,

Columbus set sail

Aug 3, 1492

Colubmus sets sail to find new trade routes to China.

Columbus lands

Oct 10, 1492

Columbus lands in the Bahamas and believes it is one of the many islands off the coast of Asia that Marco Polo described. He then calls the people living there Indians.

Columbus goes back to Spain

Jan 1, 1493

Columbus, after learning about the people living on the Bahamas, goes back to Spain to tell King Ferninad of the riches on Bahamas.

Line of Demarcation

Jan 1, 1493

Pope Alexander IV divided up the world with an imaginary line called the Line of Demarcation to prevent any fighting over land. All non-christian lands to the east of this line could be claimed by Portugal while all the lands to the west could be claimed by Spain.

Treaty of Tordesillas

Jun 1, 1494

Portugal was unhappy with how little land they got from the Line of Demarcation so they declared the line be moved to the west more. Spain agreed and they moved the line over 800 miles west. tThis happened June 1494 and is known as the Treaty of Tordesillas. The land that Portuguese gained is what became Brazil.

All water route to Asia

Jan 1, 1498

Ten years after Dias sailed around the Cape of Good Hope another Portuguese explorer, Vasco de Gama, went the same route but continued across the Indian Ocean and reached India. This was the first discovered All-Water route to Asia.

Amerigo Vespucci

Jan 1, 1501

Amerigo Vespucci was one of the first Europeans after Columbus to go explore the New World. Whenever Vespucci reached America though he realized it wasn't Asia like everyone had though but a whole new continent, A German mapmaker named the new continent after Vespucci becuase he discovered it which gives us the name America today.

Vasco Nunez de Balboa

Jan 1, 1513

Balboa, after hearing of the gold in the new provinces, led an expedition and went through the Panama jungles. Balboa reached the Pacific Ocean and claimed all the lands near the ocean for Spain.

spanish conquistadors explored Americas

Jan 1, 1519

"In 1519, soldiers known as conquistadors 0kahn-KEES-tuh-dawrz), or conquerors, explored the Americas and claimed them for Sopain," Excerpt from page 27 of "American History Beginnings through Reconstruction".

Ferninad Magellan

Jan 1, 1519

Magellan went out to sea with five ships and 270 men. Magellan sailed around South America through storms and reached the Phillipines. In the Phillipines he was killed in a local battle.

Fall of the Aztecs

May 1, 1521

After La Noche Triste Cortes led his men back to Tenochtitlan and caused the Aztec empire to fall through smallpox which Aztecs had no immunity to. When the Aztecs fell the Spanish set up Mexico city of Tenochtitlan.

Magellans crew reaches Spain

Jan 1, 1522

The one reamaining ship from Magellan's crew reached spain and the members became the first people to sail all the way around the world.

Francisco Pizarro

Jan 1, 1531

Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish explorer, led 180 men into Peru and killed thousands of Incans that went to greet them. After they caused the Incan empire to collapse they claimed the land for Spain and it was already called Peru.