Thursday, October 3, 2019

Statement of Inquiry: Europeans

explored for many reasons, leading to

both positive and negative consequences.

HW: ROAD TRIP PROJECT DUE NEXT TUESDAY 10/8!

Planning ahead: Exploration vocab quiz 10/17

Exploration unit test 10/22

Today is an

EVEN day!

EARLY MIDDLE AGES (500-1100 A.D.)

• Most Europeans had little knowledge of the

world outside of their manor.

• Manors were

self-sufficient.

• There was little

need for travel

or trade.

• Few could read or write. Most believed the

world was flat.

• People lived in very poor conditions where

there was constant war, poverty and hunger.

• This period of time is known as the

Dark Ages.

Why you would never have survived

life in the Middle Ages

But, this

gradually begins

to change…

THE CRUSADES (1100 - 1300)

•By about the year 1000, the Middle Ages

began to end. Peasants used new methods of

farming to produce more food.

•Trade began to grow.

•European Christians fought a series of wars to

capture the

holy city of Jerusalem

from the Muslims.

•These wars were

called the Crusades.

•After 200 years of fighting, the Europeans failed

to capture Jerusalem.

•However, the Crusades forced Europeans to

travel beyond their villages and exposed them to

new goods and ideas. They began trading for

new items from Asia such as silks, rugs, dates,

apricots, cotton, cinnamon, garlic and nutmeg.

•Europeans had traded with the Middle East for

many years before the Crusades. However, the

Crusades would help inspire Europeans to look

overseas for trade.

Increased trade

and travel led to

more knowledge

and curiosity

about the world!

RENAISSANCE (1300s - 1600s)

• Increased trade and travel made Europeans eager

to learn more about their world.

• With this new curiosity about

the world and a powerful

new invention, a burst of

learning took place in Europe.

Scholars produced books on

art, medicine, astronomy and

chemistry. This period of time

is called the Renaissance.

• The printing press,

invented by a German

scholar named Johan

Gutenberg, allowed

large numbers of books

to be produced at once.

This made books

cheaper and more

widely available than

ever before.

• Learning began to spread

more quickly.

How the Gutenberg press works

Newspaper printing press today

Click here!

Click here!

TECHNOLOGY: INVENTIONS THAT MADE

EXPLORATION EASIER AND SAFER

New inventions made exploration easier, safer and

more efficient than ever before. Some of those

inventions were:

Caravel - Faster sailing ship that was highly

maneuverable.

(easier to steer)

Magnetic Compass - Device

that told sailors which

direction they were

traveling.

Astrolabe - Device that

allowed sailors to figure

out their latitude at sea.

TRAVEL ROUTES

• Europeans were REALLY interested in

exploring and trading with Asia because they

wanted to increase their power. But getting

there would not be easy.

• Traveling over

land was slow

and expensive.

• Many existing

trade routes were

shut down.

• New expeditions tried to discover

oceangoing routes to India and the Far East.

In the 1400s,

the Portuguese

tried to reach

Asia by sailing

south and east

around Africa.

Enter…

Christopher Columbus!

Will the real Columbus please stand up?!

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

• European leaders wanted valuable products

that could be found in the Middle East and

Asia.

• Any known trade routes were long and

dangerous or blocked by Muslim traders.

• In the late 1400s, an Italian named

Christopher Columbus traveled around

Europe trying to convince leaders to pay for

a new voyage to find Asia.

The King and Queen of Spain

agreed to support his trip!

Columbus meets

Isabella of Spain

(click here)

• Columbus’ plan was to reach Asia by sailing

WEST across the Atlantic. He made his trip in

1492, arriving in what he thought was Asia.

It was really the AMERICAS!

Map, 1490