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A man by the name of Geoffery Chaucer wrote a book in this year. His book was written to tell people about the Astrolabe, an instrument used for navigating by the stars. It told people how to construct it and use it correctly.
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The long lost map of the world was a map that was drawn by the geographer Ptolomey in the second century. This would be the best existing map of the world, but it would somehow become lost for centuries. The map is rediscovered in 1406 and it would be the map that made Colombus believe he could reach Asia by sailing west.
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In 1453, Moslem Turks captured the Christian city of Constantinople. After the capture, historians started to use this time for the beginning of the Renissance. With the beginning of the Renissance, came the beginning of exploration. Therefore, the Genoese put a significant amount of money behind the Portugese effotrs to find a new route to Asia from Europe.
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In this time, an infamous explorer by the name of Bartholomeu Dias goes out on a soon to be well known voyage. He was to sail from Europe to Africa. Dias would become the first European to reach the southern tip of Africa, known as the Cape of Good Hope.
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In the year 1492 Christopher Colombus set out from Europe to find a faster and easier route to Asia. Instead of finding Asia, Colombus ended up finding the West Indies in the New World. Also, with learning this, Colombus realizes that compasses change direction with the change in latitude.
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In 1499, Amerigo Vespucchi reaches the coast of of South America in thinking that it is a part of Asia. In exploring the coast, he realizes it is not part of Asia. He then decides that it is a whole new continent.
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Portugese explorers reach the Spice Islands in the East Indies.
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After the Europeans started reaching the new world and exploring all of the land they created a war. The war wasn't physical fighting but an internal fight within the Indian population. When the explorers came, they brought disease. Diseases that the Indians couldn't fight off like Smallpox.
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Ferdinand Magellan would leave Spain this year, setting out to find a southwestern passage to Asia. He takes 5 ships and hundreds of men on his journey. Also in this year, Hernan Cortez reaches the Americas and enters the Aztec Capital, Tenochitlan to meet with the Aztec emperor.
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Hernan Cortez and his army of approximately 200 people went into Tenochitlan to fight the Aztec army of thousands. With much blood being shed, surprisingly the Spainsh came out victorious. The new capital of "New Spain" (Mexico City) is built on top of the ruins of Tenochitlan.
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After Magellan set out on his voyage to find a southwestern passage to Asia, the last of his 5 ships returns. Coming back to Spain with a lot of knowledge about the sea and the surrounding lands. They end the first voyage around the world.
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After the battle between the Spanish conquistadors and the Inca Indians, the victorious Spainiards took the Inca emperor Atahualpa hostage. They kept him for months, allowing him to have the same treatment before his was taken for the sake that they knew he had knowledge about the land that was good for them. Once he was no longer needed, Pizzaro hung Atahualpa.
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In 1570, Sir Francis Drake set out on a voyage in hopes to be the first to circumnavigate the globe. His voyage took three years, ending in 1580. He indeed reached his goal and he became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe.
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Spains great Armada came into great danger when Sir Francis Drake and another commander attacked. They destroyed the Armada and caused profound anguish. This made England the greatest sea power in the eastern hemisphere.
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After the America's were discovered and were found out to most definitely not be Asia, many Europeans thought that was the end of the new continents. Although, in 1606 Dutch explorers sailed south and discovered a new landmass that no one had came across before. This landmass would be known as Australia.
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These are the 15 events in exploration that I think are the most important to our time, including today and why i chose all of the events included in my timeline.
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I chose these 15 dates in the age of exploration for many reasons. I think these are the most important events in this time because they are either well known or the things that were discovered are part of everyday life or knowledge. Most of these involved very famous explorers or explorers that discovered the continents of the world. Each of them are significantly important to today's generations in some way. The astrolabe may not be used today but there are other types of divices that came
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from the astrolabe. So knowing the history of these explorers, their accomplishments, and findings are very important to people today. They all learn about the continents or things that happened and in this way, I think that they 15 dates that I chose in exploration are very easily the most important to the time era.
