The 1500s: Europeans Sail The World As you know by now, the money to be made by satisfying the European taste for Asian spices, along with
the revolutionary development of faster sailing ships that made sea trips to Asia possible, led to one of the
most important events in world history. That was the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus
in 1492. It was an accidental discovery, because he didn't actually know where he was when it happened. He
had left Spain thinking he would (1)?
It took him three trips and several
years to realize he was in a place previously unknown to anyone in Europe. By then the calendar had
turned, and the 1500s - also known as the 16th century - had begun.
During this 100-year period Europeans (2)
in North and South America, Africa,
and Asia. The basic purpose of this colonization was to set-up places for European traders to live so they
would have time to buy and store whatever
local products could be sold in Europe. The trip from Europe
took many months, so it was easier for the Europeans (3)?
buyers and traders in the port
cities their ships would sail to than to have to buy what they wanted when the ships got there. This was
something that traders of many nations had done for a long time (for example, Indian traders lived in China
and Chinese traders in India), but the Europeans travelled further to do this than others had before them.
The 1500s were the time when European sailors took their (4?
to a new level
of competition, partly because of events unfolding back in Europe. When they got to Asia they brought along
their culture and also their rivalries and disagreementſ
. These rivalries and disagreements had a strong
effect on European colonization. One of the important tianges taking place back in Europe
was the
transformation of the Christian faith from existing in one large church, the Catholic Church led by the Pope
in addition to Catholicism. Many people in the Netherlands,
France, Britain, and (what is now) Germany had broken away from the Catholic Church to follow the
teachings of
of Christian leaders who disagreed with traditional Catholic beliefs. They protested Catholic
practices, so they were known as Protestants. Non-Catholic Christians are still called Protestants. (The
Catholic Church remains the largest Christian Church, but is much less powerful than it was in 1500; many
European nations almost completely converted to the new Protestant faiths during the 1500s.)
(1-5)
to already have race for Asian spices reach Asia by a new route
in Rome
to (5)?
a number of churches
established colonies