The World Is a Pear - Don't Know Much About Geography - page 23

1410 French theologian Pierre d'Ailly writes Imago Mundi , in which the size of the earth is greatly
reduced. Columbus reads and underlines d'Ailly's work, this passage in particular: “The length of
the land toward the Orient is much greater than Ptolemy admits . . . because the length of the habit-
able Earth on the side of the Orient is more than half the circuit of the globe. For, according to the
philosophers and Pliny, the ocean which stretches between the extremity of further Spain (that is
Morocco) and the eastern edge of India is no great width. For it is evident that the sea is navigable
in a very few days if the wind be fair , whence it follows that the sea is not so great that it can cover
three quarters of the globe, as certain people figure it.”
1415 The Portuguese capture Ceuta on the North African coast (Morocco), marking the beginning
of Portugal's African empire. A few years later in 1444, the Portuguese bring the first African slaves
back to Europe.
1453 Constantinople, the capital city of Eastern Christianity, is captured by the Turks, who convert
St. Sophia's Basilica into a mosque and end the contact between West and East that had flowed
through this city that connects Europe and Asia. But a rush of Greek scholars into Italy helps hasten
the Renaissance.
1457 A map of the world drawn by Fra Mauro, a Venetian monk, contradicts Ptolemy's idea that
Africa is connected to another large southern continent and holds out the possibility of an ocean
voyage around Africa.
1487 Bartholomeu Dias rounds the tip of Africa.
1492 Columbus lands in the New World, although he will always believe he has reached the Asian
continent. His voyages into the Caribbean mark the opening of the age of European discovery, col-
onization, and exploitation of the Americas.
1494 The Treaty of Tordesillas divides the New World between Portugal and Spain.
1497 Italian navigator Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot), sailing under the English flag, reaches New-
foundland and claims it for England.
1497-98 Vasco da Gama becomes the first European to sail to India and back.
1498 Columbus reaches South America during his fourth voyage. Although he realizes he has found
a vast continent, he still believes it to be connected to Asia.
1499 Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian navigator, reaches America. In later letters that are widely read
in Europe, he takes credit for having discovered a mundus novus, or new world.
1500 Pedro Cabral discovers Brazil.
1505 The Portuguese establish trading centers in East Africa.