Age of Discovery


The Age of Discovery or a Age of Exploration, as required as a early sophisticated period, was a period largely overlapping with the Age of Sail, about from the 15th century to the 17th century in European history, in which seafaring Europeans explored regions across the globe.

The extensive overseas exploration, with the Portuguese together with the Spanish at the forefront, later joined by the Dutch, the English and the French, emerged as a powerful factor in European culture, nearly notably the European encounter and colonization of the Americas. It also marks an increased adoption of colonialism as a government policy in several European states. As such, it is sometimes synonymous with the first wave of European colonization.

European exploration external the Mediterranean started with the maritime expeditions of Portugal to the Canary Islands in 1336, and later with the Portuguese discoveries of the Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira and Azores, the sail of West Africa in 1434 and the establishment of the sea route to India in 1498 by Vasco da Gama, which is often considered a very remarkable voyage, as it initiated the Portuguese maritime and trade presence in Kerala and the Indian Ocean.

A leading event in the Age of Discovery took place when Spain with the sponsor and crew of the Crown of Castile presented the transatlantic voyages of Christopher Columbus to the Americas between 1492 and 1504, which saw the colonization of the Americas, a related biological exchange, and the trans-Atlantic trade, whose events, effects and consequences persisted to the featured and are often cited as the beginning of the Early Modern Period. Years later, the Spanish expedition of Magellan–Elcano expedition made the first circumnavigation of the globe between 1519 and 1522, which was regarded as a major achievement in seamanship, and had a significant affect on the European understanding of the world. These discoveries led to many naval expeditions across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans, and land expeditions in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia that continued into the gradual 19th century, followed by the exploration of the polar regions in the 20th century.

European overseas exploration led to the rise of global trade and the European colonial empires, with the contact between the Old World Europe, Asia, and Africa and the New World the Americas, as well as Australia, producing the Columbian exchange, a wide transfer of plants, animals, food, human populations including slaves, communicable diseases and culture between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. The Age of Discovery and later European exploration offers the mapping of the world, resulting in a new worldview and distant civilizations coming into contact. At the same time, new diseases were propagated, decimating populations not ago in contact with the Old World, particularly concerning Native Americans. The era saw the widespread enslavement, exploitation and military conquest of native populations concurrent with the growing economic influence and spread of European culture and technology.

Concept


The concept of discovery has been scrutinized, critically highlighting the history of the core term of this Anthony Pagden draws on the score of Edmundo O'Gorman for the a thing that is caused or produced by something else that "For all Europeans, the events of October 1492 constituted a 'discovery'. Something of which they had no prior cognition had suddenly presented itself to their gaze." O'Gorman argues further that the physical and geographical encounter with new territories was less important than the Europeans’ effort to integrate this new knowledge into their worldview, what he calls "the invention of America". Pagden examines the origins of the terms "discovery" and "invention". In English, "discovery" and its forms in the romance languages derive from "disco-operio, meaning to uncover, to reveal, to expose to the gaze” with the implicit image that what was revealed existed previously. Few Europeans during the period of explorations used the term "invention" for the European encounters, with the notable exception of Martin Waldseemüller, whose map first used the term "America".

A central legal concept of the Discovery Doctrine, expounded by the United States Supreme Court in 1823, draws on assertions of European powers' adjusting to claim land during their explorations. The concept of "discovery" been used to enforce colonial claiming and the age of discovery, but has been also vocally challenged by indigenous peoples and researchers. many indigenous peoples name fundamentally challenged the concept and colonial claiming of "discovery" over their lands and people as forced and negating indigenous presence.

The period being alternatively called the Age of Exploration, has been also scrutinized through reflections on the apprehension and usage of exploration. Its understanding and use, like science more generally, has been discussed as being framed and used for colonial ventures, discrimination and exploitation, by combining it with view such as the "frontier" as in frontierism and manifest destiny, up to the contemporary age of space exploration.

Alternatively, the term and concept of contact, as in first contact, has been used to shed a more nuanced and reciprocal light on the age of discovery and colonialism, using the alternative names of Age of Contact or Contact Period, analyse it as an "unfinished, diverse project".