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Leif Eriksson lands in present day Newfoundland
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In 1076 people from North Africa called Almoravids attacked Ghana and disrupted its trade routes.
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Beginningn in 1095, the Europeans launched the first of nine expeditions, know as the Crusades, to regain control of their holy sites.
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The magnetic compass allowed sailors to determine their direction when they were far from land.
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In 1271 Marco Polo set off from Italy across Asia to China. He was only 17 years old at that time.
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In 1324 Musa, a Muslim made a grand pilgrimage to the Muslim holy city of Makkah in western Saudi Arabia.
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In the late 1400's the Portuguese developed the three-masted caravel. The caravel lsailed faster than earlier ships and carried more cargo and food supplies.
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The period of intellectual and artistic creativity became know as the Renaissance. It means "re-birth" and refers to the renewed interest in classical Greek and Roman learning.
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In the 1450's the introduction of movable type and the printing press made it much easier to print books allowing more people access to books and new information.
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The Songhai people built a navy to control the Niger and in 1468 captured Timbuktu.
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Bartholomeu Dias sent to explore the southernmost part of Africa. As he approaches the area he runs into a storm he calls the "Cape of Storms" later known as the Cape of Good Hope.
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Christopher Columbus lands in the Americas
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In 1497 England sent John Cabot, an Italian, to look for a northern route to Asia. England used Cabot's voyage as the basis for its claim to North America.
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da Gama reaches the port of Calicut in 1498, completing the long-awaited eastern sea route to Asia.
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Spain hired Ferdinand Magellan, a Portugues mariner, to lead an expedition of five ships. They sailed from Spain and headed west across the Atlantic Ocean and then south along the eastern coast of South America.
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IN 1524 France hired an Italian, Giovanni da Verrazano, to look for the northern sea route. Verrazano explored the coast of North America from present-day Nova Scotia down to the Carolinas.
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The conquistador Francisco Pizarro sailed down the Pacific coast of South America with about 180 Spanish soldiers.
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Hernando de Soto described the Mississippi River as swift and very deep. While traveling the Mississippi he died of fever andn his men buried him in the waters of the Mississippi River.
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Netherlands wanted a passage through the America's so they hired Henry Hudson to explore. In 1906 he discovered the river that now bears his name.
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In 1621 the Dutch West India Company set up a trading colony - New Netherland - in the area Hudson had explored.
