Discovering Our Past: The American Journey to World War IChapter 1: Expanding HorizonsChapter OverviewInnovations in technology made exploration in the 1400s and 1500s possible. European kingdoms, including Portugal, Spain, France, and England, sought water routes to Asia and attempted to find them through sea exploration. Portuguese explorers searched for water routes along the coast of Africa, while Christopher Columbus, sailing for Spain, looked west across the Atlantic Ocean. By the 1500s, advanced civilizations, like the Aztec and Inca Empires, had developed in the Americas. Spanish explorers, however, easily conquered these powerful empires and settled the Americas. The explorations of Christopher Columbus and others set into motion the worldwide exchange of people, goods, technology, ideas, and diseases. The exchange of food products abroad helped increase the world's food supply and also the world's population. Not all changes were positive, however. Europeans brought new diseases to the Americas, leading to the deaths of millions of natives.The economic theory of mercantilism led European nations to compete for power and colonies. By exporting more goods than they imported, countries believed they could garner more power. Capitalism emerged as merchants exported goods and joint-stock companies encouraged trading ventures. During the Age of Enlightenment, thinkers wanted to use reason to change society. Enlightenment thinkers looked to ancient Greece and Rome for the foundations of many modern ideas in science and political thought, for example, the "rule of law." The political ideas that influenced American revolutionary leaders developed during this period. |  |
