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People in Europe read of Marco Polo's travels to Cathay (China) and other exiting Asian lands.
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Europe began to look to the seas and beyond. some longed for adventuture. Others wanted to spread Christianity far and wide. Most of all, though, people wanted to find riches. The age of exploration and discovery had began.
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Columbus led his first expedition westward. He landed in the Bahamas, islands that he belived to be near Asia.
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Portugese explorer Vasco da Gama found such a route and sailed all the way to India.
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King Henrey VII sent cabot on a voyage to the west. The English thought that there might be a water route through the Americas that would lead north and west to Asia. They called this sought route the Northwest passage.
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Columbus reached South America. Later, a mapmaker labled this continent "America" for another explorer, Amerigo Vespucci.
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Spain was takig control of much of south and centrial America and many Caribbean islands
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King Frances I of France sent Italian navigator Giovanni da Verrazano westward. Verrazano first reached land at North Carolina's Outer Banks. Across those narrow islands he thought he saw the Pacific Ocean.
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