Age of Exploration

By Deane Barker • • tags: history •

The informal period from the 1400s to the 1700s when Europeans sailed the ocean to new lands.

Here’s a list of some of the places Europeans visited (“discovered”) during this period.

At the end of this period, humans had – for the first time – a basic knowledge of all the major land masses on the globe. There were fewer “unknown areas,” and shipping had advanced to the point where trans-ocean voyages were common and relatively reliable.

Why I Looked It Up

I had heard the term for years. My notes say I stumbled across in – probably in some book - in September.

(It might have been this book: Origins of a Journey)

Links to this – Intellectual and Cultural Eras September 28, 2024
When considering ages or eras of history, framing is very important. The first thing you need to understand is that these time periods are wildly imprecise, for a couple reasons: (1) they naturally overlap, and (2) you need to decide the “altitude” from which you’re going to consider them. At the...
Links from this – Origins of a Journey: History's Greatest Adventures Marked by Ambition, Necessity, and Madness October 16, 2021
This is a fun book. It’s not gonna change your life or anything, but you’ll probably enjoy it if you accept it for what it is. It’s basically a series of short chapters – blog posts, essentially – describing some adventurer, from Charles Lindbergh to Christopher Columbus to Harriet Tubman to...