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Christopher Columbus makes his first voyage to the Caribbean
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Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama goes around Africa and reaches India
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German cartographer Martin Waldseemuller names the New World America, after Amerigo Vespucci.
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The Portuguese take over the Indian island Goa, and make it their major military and commercial base.
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Spanish "adventurer" Vasco Nunez de Balboa reached the Pacific Ocean, which he named the South Sea.
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Portuguese ships reach China for the first time. The Chinese were not impressed with their gifts, but eventually allowed them to have a trading post.
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Magellan claims the Philippines for Spain .In the next 50 years the Spainish conquered and colonized the Philippines.
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Megallan and his crew circumnavigate the world.
Megallan himself did not survive the expedition because he dies in the Phillipines -
The Portuguese reach Japan and begin trading with the Japanese.Soon other Europeans begin trading with the Japanese
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Matteo Ricci became friends with Confucian scholars and when he died he was buried near the emperor. Most of Europe's knowledge about China comes from Matteo Ricci's writings.
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A Dutch fleet returned to Amsterdam with a cargo of pepper, cloves, and other spices. The sucess of the voyage got the Dutch more involved in foreign trade and lead to the creation of the Dutch East India Company
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The Dutch East India Company was founded in 1602.Very powerful because the Dutch Government had complete control over it.
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The Dutch take Malaca, (a coastal city that was a center for spice trading) away from the Portuguese and opened trade with China
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Britian establishes the African Association to sponsor Britsh explorers in Africa.In the next century European exploration of Africa "exploded"
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Lord Macartney arrives in China to persuade the Chinese to trade with the British but failed because of a culture barrior or diffrence.