The most important geographical discoveries traveler discovery. The most famous travelers and their discoveries

Everything that we now know was once discovered by people - pioneers. Some crossed the ocean for the first time and found a new land, someone became the discoverer of space, someone was the first to dive in a bathyscaphe into the world's deepest cavity. Thanks to the ten pioneers below, today we know the world for what it really is.

• Leif Eriksson/Leifur Eiriksson is the first European of Icelandic origin who, according to some scholars, was the first to visit the continent of North America. Around the 11th century, this Scandinavian sailor lost his course and landed on some coast, which he later called "Vinland". Documentary, of course, there is no evidence of exactly which part North America he moored. Some archaeologists claim that they managed to discover Viking settlements in Newfoundland, Canada.

• Sacajawea, or Sacagawea / Sakakawea, Sacajawea is a girl of Indian origin, on whom Maryweather Lewis and his partner William Clark completely relied on during their expedition, the path of which ran through the entire American continent. The girl walked with these researchers more than 6473 kilometers. On top of that, the girl had a newborn baby in her arms. During this journey in 1805, Sacagawea found her lost brother. The girl is mentioned in the movie "Night at the Museum" and "Night at the Museum 2".

• Christopher Columbus / Christopher Columbus - a navigator of Spanish origin who discovered America, but due to the fact that he and his expedition were looking for a sea route to India, Christopher believed that the lands he had discovered were Indian. In 1492, his expedition discovered the Bahamas, Cuba and several other islands. Caribbean. Christopher set sail for the first time at the age of 13.

• Amerigo Vespucci is the man after whom the continent America was named. Although, in fact, Columbus made this discovery, it was American Vespucci who documented the “find”. In 1502, he explored the shores of South America, and it was then that the well-deserved fame and honor came to him.

• James Cook / James Cook - a captain who managed to sail much further into southern waters than any of his contemporaries. Cook owns a proven fact about the falsity of the northern route through the Arctic from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Captain James Cook is known to have committed 2 round the world expeditions, mapped the islands in the Pacific Ocean, as well as Australia, for which he was subsequently eaten by the natives. That's how gratitude is.

• William Beebe is a 20th century naturalist explorer. In 1934, he descended 922 meters on a bathysphere and told people that "the world under water is no less strange than on another planet." Although how does he know how to live on other planets?

• Chuck Yeager is a general in the US Air Force. In 1947, the first one broke the sound barrier. In 1952, Chuck flew at twice the speed of sound. Chuck Yeager, in addition to setting speed records, was a trainer for pilots of such space programs as Apollo, Gemini and Mercury.

• Louise Arne Boyd/Louise Boyd known to the world also under the nickname "Ice Woman". She got this nickname thanks to her explorations of Greenland. In 1955, she flew over the North Pole and was the first woman to do so in an airplane. She also has the discovery of an underwater mountain range in the Arctic Ocean.

• Yuri Gagarin / Yuri Gagarin - April 12, 1961, the first of all people living on our planet, was in space. His first flight lasted as much as 108 minutes. It was a real achievement in astronautics.

• Anousheh Ansari is the first female space tourist. She made her flight in September 2006. To her achievements, one can add the fact that she was the first of all those who have been in orbit to blog on the Internet from space.

The process of disintegration of feudalism and the emergence of capitalist relations in Europe was accelerated by the opening of new trade routes and new countries in the 15th-16th centuries, which marked the beginning of the colonial exploitation of the peoples of Africa, Asia and America.

By the 16th century in Western Europe, commodity production and trade made significant progress, and the need for money, which was the universal medium of exchange, increased sharply. “The discovery of America,” says Engels about the causes of geographical discoveries, “was caused by a thirst for gold, which even before that drove the Portuguese to Africa ... because it developed so powerfully in the XIV and XV centuries. European industry and the corresponding trade required more means of exchange, which Germany - the great country of silver in 1450-1550. - could not give. Letter from Engels to K. Schmidt, October 27, 1890, K. Marx, F. Engels, Selected Letters, 1953, p. 426.) By this time, the desire for luxury and the accumulation of treasures among the upper classes of European society also greatly increased. Under such conditions, the desire for enrichment, or, in the words of Marx, "the general thirst for money" ( "Archive of Marx and Engels", vol. IV, p. 225.) embraced in Europe both the nobles, and the townspeople, and the clergy, and kings.

One of the most tempting means of getting rich quick in 15th century Europe. there was trade with Asia, the importance of which after the Crusades increased more and more. The largest cities of Italy, primarily Venice and Genoa, rose on intermediary trade with the East. The East was a source of supply for Europeans with luxury goods. Spices brought from India and the Moluccas - pepper, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg - became a favorite seasoning for food in rich houses, and a lot of money was paid for a grain of spices. Perfumes from Arabia and India, gold items from oriental jewelers, Indian and Chinese silk, cotton and wool fabrics, Arabian incense, etc. were in great demand in Europe. India, China, Japan were considered countries rich in gold and precious stones. The imagination of European money-seekers was struck by the stories of travelers about the fabulous riches of these distant countries; especially popular were the notes of the Venetian merchant Marco Polo, who visited in the XIII century. in China and in many other countries of the East. In his notes, Marco Polo reported such fantastic information about Japan unknown to Europeans: “Gold, I tell you, they have a great abundance; there is an extremely large amount of it here, and they do not take it out of here ... I will now describe to you the outlandish palace of the sovereign of the local people. To tell the truth, the palace here is large and covered with pure gold, just as our houses and churches are covered with lead ... I will also tell you that the floors in the chambers - and there are many of them - are also covered with pure gold two in thickness; and everything in the palace - both the halls and the windows - is covered with gold ornaments... There is an abundance of pearls here, it is pink and very beautiful, round, large... "The Europeans were promised great wealth and the seizure of trade routes in the seas of South Asia, along which East, there was a lively trade, which was in the hands of Arab, Indian, Malay and Chinese merchants.

However, countries Western Europe(with the exception of Italy) did not have direct trade relations with eastern countries and did not receive benefits from eastern trade. The trade balance of Europe in its trade with the East was passive. Therefore, in the XV century. there was an outflow of metallic money from European countries to the East, which further increased the shortage of precious metals in Europe. In addition, in the XV century. in Europe's trade with Asian countries, new circumstances appeared that contributed to a fabulous increase in prices for oriental goods. The collapse of the Mongol state resulted in the termination of the caravan trade of Europe with China and India through Central Asia and Mongolia, and the fall of Constantinople and the Turkish conquests in Western Asia and the Balkan Peninsula in the 15th century. almost completely closed the trade route to the East through Asia Minor and Syria. The third trade route to the East - through the Red Sea - was the monopoly of the Egyptian sultans, who in the XV century. began to levy extremely high duties on all goods transported this way. In this regard, the decline of the Mediterranean trade began, the centers of which were Italian cities.

Europeans in the 15th century attracted the wealth of not only Asia, but also Africa. At this time, the countries of Southern Europe through the Mediterranean Sea traded with the countries of North Africa, mainly with Egypt and with the rich and cultural states of the Maghreb - Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. However, until the end of the XV century. most of the African continent was unknown to Europeans; there were no direct ties between Europe and Western Sudan, isolated from the Mediterranean countries by the rugged Sahara Desert and the part of the Atlantic Ocean unknown to Europeans.

At the same time, the cities of the coast of North Africa traded with the tribes of the interior regions of the Sudan and Tropical Africa, who exchanged ivory and slaves. Along the caravan routes across the Sahara, gold, slaves and other goods from the Western Sudan and from the Guinean coast were delivered to the cities of the Maghreb and fell into the hands of Europeans, arousing their desire to reach these unknown rich regions of Africa by sea.

“To what extent,” says Engels, “at the end of the 15th century, money undermined and corroded the feudal system from within, is clearly seen from the thirst for gold, which in this era took possession of Western Europe; the Portuguese were looking for gold on the African coast, in India, in the entire Far East; gold was the magic word that drove the Spaniards across the Atlantic to America; gold - that's what the white man first demanded, as soon as he set foot on the newly opened shore. F. Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, M. 1953, Applications, p. 155.) Thus, in Western Europe in the XV century. there was a need to search for new sea routes from Europe to Africa, India and East Asia.

But the distant and dangerous sea voyages undertaken from the end of the 15th century. with the aim of opening new routes to Africa and the East and to conquer new countries, became possible because by this time, as a result of the development of productive forces, important improvements had been introduced in the field of navigation and military affairs.

Sailing ships with a keel, introduced by the Normans as early as the 10th century, gradually became widespread in all countries and replaced the multi-tiered rowing Greek and Roman ships.

During the XV century. the Portuguese, during their voyages along the western coast of Africa, using the Genoese type of a three-masted sea vessel, created a new high-speed and light sailboat suitable for long-distance voyages - the caravel. Unlike coastal (coastal) navigation vessels, the caravel had three masts and was equipped with a large number of straight and slanting sails, thanks to which it could move even with an unfavorable wind direction. She had a very capacious hold, which made it possible to make large sea passages; the crew of the caravel was small. The safety of navigation has been significantly improved due to the fact that the compass and nautical charts- portolans; in Portugal, the astrolabe, borrowed from the Arabs, was improved - a goniometric tool with which the positions of the stars and latitude were calculated; at the end of the 15th century. tables of planetary movements were published to facilitate the calculation of latitude at sea.

The improvement of firearms was important.

A serious obstacle to the organization of sea voyages were geographical representations based on the teachings of the Greek geographer Ptolemy, which dominated medieval Europe. Ptolemy rejected the doctrine of the movement of the Earth and believed that the Earth stands motionless at the center of the universe; he admitted the idea of ​​a spherical shape of the Earth, but argued that somewhere in the south Southeast Asia is connected to East Africa, the Indian Ocean is closed on all sides by land; thus, get from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean and reach the shores by sea East Asia supposedly impossible. According to the views prevailing in the Middle Ages, borrowed from ancient authors, the Earth was divided into five climatic zones, and it was believed that life was possible only in two temperate zones, at both poles there were completely lifeless regions of eternal cold, and at the equator there was a belt of terrible heat, where the sea boils and ships and people on them burn.

In the XV century. with the success of the Renaissance culture in Europe, these ideas began to be increasingly questioned. Even in the XIII century. Marco Polo and other travelers proved that in reality the eastern coast of Asia does not extend endlessly to the east, as Ptolemy thought, but is washed by the sea. On some maps of the XV century. Africa was depicted as a separate mainland tapering to the south. The hypothesis about the spherical shape of the Earth and a single ocean washing the land, expressed even by ancient scientists, was found in the 15th century. an increasing number of supporters. Based on this hypothesis, in Europe they began to express the idea of ​​​​the possibility of reaching the eastern coast of Asia by sea, sailing from Europe to the west, across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1410 the French bishop Pierre d'Aglie wrote the book "Picture of the World", in which he cited the statements of ancient and medieval scientists about the sphericity of the earth and argued that the distance from the coast of Spain to India across the ocean is small and can be passed with fair wind in a few days.

At the end of the XV century. The idea of ​​the possibility of a western route to India was especially ardently promoted by the Florentine physician and cosmographer Paolo Toscanelli. He depicted on the map the Atlantic Ocean, washing Europe in the east, and Japan, China and India in the west, and thus tried to show that the western route from Europe to the East was the shortest. “I know,” he wrote, “that the existence of such a path can be proved on the basis that the Earth is a sphere ...”

The Nuremberg merchant and astronomer Martin Beheim presented a gift to his hometown the first globe he made with a characteristic inscription: “Let it be known that the whole world is measured out on this figure, so that no one doubts how simple the world is, and that everywhere you can drive ships or pass, as shown here ... "

Navigation and maritime geography among the peoples of Asia in the Middle Ages

The peoples of Asia - Indians, Chinese, Malays and Arabs - during the Middle Ages achieved significant success in the field of geographical knowledge, the development of navigation in the Indian and Pacific oceans and the art of navigation, which was important for the geographical discoveries of Europeans in Asia and Africa and their expansion to territories of these continents.

Long before the appearance of Europeans in the Indian Ocean, these peoples discovered and mastered the great South Asian sea route, which connected the countries of the most ancient culture in the East, from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea. Along the western section of this route, from the Malabar coast of India to East Africa, Arabia and Egypt, Indian ships sailed in antiquity; their helmsmen skillfully used the monsoons - seasonal winds in the southern seas. In the first centuries of our era, Chinese, Indian and Malay merchants and sailors laid routes in the eastern part indian ocean, South China and Java Seas, establishing trade relations between the countries South-East Asia. At the beginning of the 5th century the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Fa Xian traveled on a Malay ship from the Bengal coast to Shandong, visiting Ceylon, Sumatra and Java on the way; in the 7th century such journeys were frequent.

After the Arab conquests and the formation of the Caliphate, the leadership in trade and navigation in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the western Indian Ocean passed to the Arabs. In their hands were Aden, the island of Socotra and a number of cities on east coast Africa. Enterprising Arab merchants were intermediaries in South Asia's trade with Europe. Their ships sailed to India, Ceylon, Java, and China; Arab trading posts arose in many cities of South Asia; there were such trading posts in Canton and Quanzhou. The cities of the coast of medieval India flourished, through which the flow of goods transported along the sea routes of Asia passed. “Here,” one Chinese described the Indian city of Calicut at the beginning of the 15th century, “there is pepper, rose oil, pearls, incense, amber, corals ... colored cotton fabrics, but all this is imported from other countries ... and gold is bought here , silver, cotton fabrics, blue and white porcelain, beads, mercury, camphor, musk, and there are large warehouses where goods are stored ... "

However, maritime trade in Southeast Asia was mainly in the hands of the Chinese and Malays.

In the period from the X to the XV century. China has become a mighty maritime power; his seaside towns became centers of world trade. Canton at the beginning of the 14th century, according to one European traveler who visited it, was equal to three Venices. “There are not as many goods in all of Italy as there are in this city alone,” he notes. At that time, large quantities of silk, porcelain, art products were exported from China to other countries, and spices, cotton fabrics, medicinal herbs, glass and other goods were imported. In Chinese ports for long-distance voyages, large sea vessels were built, which had several decks, many rooms for the crew and merchants; the crew of such a ship usually numbered up to a thousand sailors and soldiers, which was necessary in case of a meeting with pirates, who were especially numerous in the waters of the Malay Archipelago. These ships were propelled by sails made of reed mats fixed on movable yards, which made it possible to change the position of the sails in accordance with the direction of the wind; when calm, these ships moved with the help of large oars. The geographical map was known to Chinese sailors even before our era. From the end of the XI century. a compass appeared on Chinese ships (the Chinese knew the property of a magnet in ancient times). “The helmsmen are aware of the outlines of the coast, and at night they determine the path by the stars, during the day - by the sun. If the sun is hidden behind clouds, then they use a south-pointing needle, ”says the navigation of Chinese sailors in one treatise of the beginning of the 12th century. Chinese sailors had a thorough knowledge of the monsoons in the southern seas, sea ​​currents, shoals, typhoons, obtained by the centuries-old practice of Asian sailors. There was also an extensive geographical literature in China, containing descriptions of overseas countries with detailed information about the goods brought from them to China.

The naval power of medieval China was especially clearly manifested in the successful implementation of the largest naval expeditions to the Indian Ocean, undertaken by the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty Chengzu in the period from 1405 to 1433. While the Portuguese had just begun their advance into the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean, the Chinese fleet in consisting of 60 to 100 different ships with a total crew of up to 25-30 thousand people made seven voyages to the west, visiting Indo-China, Java, Ceylon, the Malabar coast in India, Aden, Ormuz in Arabia; in 1418 Chinese ships visited the Somali coast of Africa. In the seas of the Malay Archipelago, this fleet defeated numerous pirate gangs that hindered the development of China's maritime trade with the countries of South Asia. All these expeditions were led by the great Chinese navigator Zheng He, who came from an humble family and was promoted to the emperor's court for his military merits. Zheng He's expeditions not only strengthened China's influence in South Asia and contributed to the growth of its economic and cultural ties, but also expanded the geographical knowledge of the Chinese: their participants studied, described and mapped the lands and waters they visited. “Countries beyond the horizon and at the edge of the earth have now become subject (to China - Ed.) And to the most western and most northern edges, and perhaps even beyond their borders, and all paths have been traveled and distances have been measured,” - this is how he assessed the results of his voyages of Zheng He.

Maritime affairs were also highly developed among the Malays who inhabited the islands of the Malay Archipelago, which included the Moluccas - the birthplace of spices exported from here to all countries of the East. The cities of Java and Sumatra and Malacca were in the XIV-XV centuries. the largest centers of trade, navigation and geographical science in the East; the Javanese helmsmen were known as experienced sailors, and the charts drawn up by the Malays were highly valued in the ports of Asia for the accuracy and thoroughness of the information contained in them.

Another center of trade and navigation in the XV century. there were Arab cities of the East African coast - Kilva, Mombasa, Malindi, Sofala, the island of Zanzibar, etc. They carried on a lively maritime trade with all Asian countries, exporting ivory, slaves, and gold exchanged by neighboring tribes for handicrafts from Arabian cities. Arab sailors knew the sea routes well from the countries of the Red Sea to the Far East; there is evidence that around 1420, one Arab navigator passed from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, rounding the southern tip of Africa. "Arab pilots have compasses for guiding ships, instructions for observing and nautical charts," wrote Vasco da Gama. A special literature on navigation was created - descriptions of routes, sailing directions, marine guides - summarizing the most important achievements in the field of shipping and navigation over many centuries. In the second half of the XV century. one of the most experienced Arab pilots in the western Indian Ocean was Ahmed ibn Majid, who came from a family of hereditary sailors. He was the author of many writings on maritime affairs, widely known among the sailors of Asia; the largest of these was the "Book of useful data on the basics of marine science and its rules." It described in detail the routes along the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf along Africa, to India, to the islands of the Malay Archipelago, to the shores of China and Taiwan, the methods of driving ships both during coastal navigation and on the high seas, instructions on the use of a compass and rhumbs, on astronomical observations, about seashores, reefs, monsoons and currents. Ibn Majid knew especially well the sea routes between Africa and the Malabar coast of India, which the Portuguese later took advantage of during their first voyage to India.

Opening of the sea route from Europe to India and the Far East

Portugal and Spain were the first among European countries to undertake the search for sea routes to Africa and India. The nobles, merchants, clergy and royalty of these countries were interested in the search. With the end of the reconquista (in Portugal it ended in the middle of the 13th century, and in Spain at the end of the 15th century), the mass of small-scale nobles - hidalgos, for whom the war with the Moors was the only occupation - remained idle. These nobles despised all activities except war, and when, as a result of the development of a commodity-money economy, their need for money increased, many of them very soon found themselves in debt to the city usurers. Therefore, the idea of ​​getting rich in Africa or in the eastern countries seemed to these knights of the reconquista, left without work and without money, especially exciting. The ability to fight, acquired by them in the wars with the Moors, the love of adventure, the thirst for military booty and glory were quite suitable for a new difficult and dangerous business - the discovery and conquest of unknown trade routes, countries and lands. It was from the environment of poor Portuguese and Spanish nobles that they emerged in the 15th-16th centuries. brave sailors, cruel conquerors-conquistadors who destroyed the states of the Aztecs and Incas, greedy colonial officials. “They walked with a cross in their hands and with an insatiable thirst for gold in their hearts,” writes one contemporary about the Spanish conquistadors. The wealthy citizens of Portugal and Spain willingly gave money for sea expeditions, which promised them the possession of the most important trade routes, rapid enrichment and a dominant position in European trade. The Catholic clergy sanctified the bloody deeds of the conquistadors with a religious banner, since thanks to the latter they acquired a new flock at the expense of tribes and peoples newly converted to Catholicism and increased their land holdings and incomes. The royal authorities of Portugal and Spain were no less interested in opening up new countries and trade routes. The impoverished, feudalized peasantry and underdeveloped cities could not give the kings enough money to cover the expenses demanded by the absolutist regime; in the possession of the most important trade routes and colonies, the kings saw a way out of financial difficulties. In addition, numerous militant nobles who remained idle after the reconquista posed a serious danger to the king and cities, since they could easily be used by large feudal lords in the struggle against the unification of the country and the strengthening of royal power. The kings of Portugal and Spain therefore sought to captivate the nobles with the idea of ​​discovering and conquering new countries and trade routes.

The sea route connecting the Italian trading cities with the countries of North-Western Europe passed through the Strait of Gibraltar and skirted the Iberian Peninsula. With the development of maritime trade in the XIV-XV centuries. the importance of coastal Portuguese and Spanish cities increased. However, the expansion of Portugal and Spain was possible only towards the unknown Atlantic Ocean, because trade in the Mediterranean had already been captured by the powerful sea cities of the Republics of Italy, and trade in the North and Baltic Seas - by the union of German cities - the Hansa. The geographical position of the Iberian Peninsula, pushed far to the west into the Atlantic Ocean, favored this direction of the expansion of Portugal and Spain. When in the 15th century in Europe, the need to look for new sea routes to the East increased, the Hansa, which monopolized all trade between the countries of North-Western Europe, and Venice, which continued to profit from the Mediterranean trade, were least interested in these searches.

As a result of these internal and external reasons, Portugal and Spain were pioneers in the search for new sea routes across the Atlantic Ocean.

The Portuguese were the first to enter the ocean routes. After the conquest by the Portuguese troops in 1415 of the Moroccan port of Ceuta - the fortress of the Mauritanian pirates located on the southern coast of the Strait of Gibraltar, the Portuguese began to advance south, along west coast Africa to Western Sudan, from where golden sand, slaves and ivory were brought overland to the north. The Portuguese sought to penetrate further south from Ceuta, into the "sea of ​​darkness", as the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean, unknown to Europeans, was then called. Strong Arab states in Northwest Africa did not allow the Portuguese to expand eastward along the Mediterranean coast of Africa. West Side mediterranean sea actually was in the hands of Arab pirates.

In the organization of expeditions of the Portuguese in the first half of the XV century. along the West African coast, the Portuguese prince Enrico, better known in history under the name of Henry the Navigator, took part. On the southwestern coast of Portugal, in Sagris, on a rocky promontory, protruding far into the ocean, an observatory and shipyards were built for the construction of ships, and a nautical school was founded. Sagrish became a maritime academy for Portugal. In it, Portuguese fishermen and sailors, under the guidance of Italian and Catalan sailors, were trained in maritime affairs, there they improved ships and navigational instruments, drew sea charts according to information brought by Portuguese sailors, and developed plans for new expeditions to the south. Since the Reconquest, the Portuguese have been familiar with Arabic mathematics, geography, navigation, cartography and astronomy. Heinrich drew funds for the preparation of travels from the income of the spiritual and knightly order of Jesus headed by him, and also received by organizing a number of trading companies on shares with wealthy nobles and merchants who hoped to increase their income through overseas trade.

At first, seafaring developed slowly in Portugal; it was difficult to find daredevils who would risk going into the "sea of ​​darkness." But the situation improved significantly after the Portuguese captured the Azores in 1432 in the west, and in 1434 Zhil Eannish rounded Cape Bojador, south of which life was considered impossible in the Middle Ages; 10 years later, another Portuguese sailor sailed 400 miles south of this cape and brought gold and Negro slaves to Portugal, initiating the Portuguese slave trade. In the mid-40s, the Portuguese had already rounded Cape Verde and reached the coast between the Senegal and Gambia rivers, densely populated and rich in golden sand, ivory and spices. Following this, they penetrated deep into the mainland. Prince Henry the Navigator, objecting in words to the slave trade, in fact encouraged it in every possible way; in West Africa his ships began to regularly go to catch slaves and acquire golden sand, ivory and spices, exchanged with negroes for trinkets; usually the prince received a significant share of the brought booty.

The hope of plundering the entire African coast accelerated the Portuguese advance to the south. In the 60s and 70s, Portuguese sailors reached the coast of the Gulf of Guinea and crossed the equator; new characteristic names appeared on the Portuguese maps of Africa: "Pepper Coast", "Ivory Coast", "Slave Coast", "Gold Coast". In the early 80s, the sailor Diego Cao made three trips to the south of the Gold Coast, passed the mouth of the Congo River and set up his padran near the southern tropic - stone pillar, erected in an open area as a sign of its accession to the possessions of the king of Portugal. Finally, in 1487, Bartolomsu Dias reached the Cape of Good Hope, rounded it and entered the Indian Ocean. However, the crew of his ships, tired of the difficulties of the journey, refused to continue sailing, and Diaz was forced to return to Lisbon without reaching the shores of India. But he claimed that South Africa you can go by sea to the coast of India. This was also confirmed by Pedro Covellano, who was sent in 1487 by the Portuguese king in search of the shortest route to India through the countries of North Africa and the Red Sea and visited the Malabar coast of India, the cities of East Africa and Madagascar; in his report to the king, sent from Cairo, he, according to a contemporary, reported that the Portuguese caravels, "which trade in Guinea, sailing from one country to another on a course to this island (Madagascar) and Sofala, can easily pass into these eastern seas and approach Calicut, for, as he learned, the sea is everywhere here.

To complete the search for a sea route to India, the Portuguese king Manoel sent an expedition led by one of his courtiers, Vasco da Gama, who came from poor nobles. In the summer of 1497, four ships under his command left Lisbon and, having circled Africa, passed along its eastern coast to Malindi, a rich Arab city that traded directly with India. The Portuguese entered into an "alliance" with the Sultan of this city, which allowed them to take with them the famous Ahmed ibn Majid as a pilot, under whose leadership they completed their voyage. On May 20, 1498, the ships of Vasco da Gama anchored off the Indian city of Calicut, one of the largest shopping centers Asia, "the marina of all Indian Sea”, as the Russian merchant Afanasy Nikitin called this city, who visited India in the second half of the 15th century. With the permission of the local raja, they began to buy spices in the city. The Arab merchants, who held in their hands all the overseas trade of the city, saw this as a threat to their monopoly and began to restore the rajah and the population of the city against the Portuguese. The Portuguese had to hastily leave Calicut and head back. In September 1499, Vasco da Gama returned to Lisbon. By the end of a two-year difficult voyage, less than half of the crew had survived.

The return to Lisbon of Portuguese ships loaded with spices from India was solemnly celebrated.

With the opening of the sea route to India, Portugal began to take over the entire maritime trade of South and East Asia. The Portuguese waged a fierce struggle against Arab trade and shipping in the Indian Ocean and began to seize the most important trade and strategic points in South Asia. In 1501, the navigator Cabral arrived in Indian waters with a military flotilla, bombarded Calicut and bought a cargo of spices in Cochin. Two years later, Vasco da Gama again set off for the Indian Ocean; as "Admiral of India" he plundered and sank the ships of Arab merchants and, returning to Lisbon with a huge booty, left a permanent military squadron in Indian waters to piracy the plunder of ships plying between Egypt and India. Soon the Portuguese captured the island of Socotra, at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden, and the fortress of Diu on the northwestern coast of India, and thus established their control over the sea routes connecting the Red Sea and South Asia. “Replenishments began to come to them from Portugal, and they began to cross the road to the Muslims, taking captive, robbing and seizing by force all kinds of ships,” reports one Arab historian of the 16th century. The lands and cities they captured in India became a stronghold for the further expansion of Portugal into Asia. Viceroy of Portuguese India d "Albuquerque took possession of the Goa fortress on the western coast of India and the Iranian port of Hormuz, and in 1511 took Malacca, a rich trading city in the Strait of Malacca, blocking the entrance to the Indian Ocean from the east. "The best of all that is in the world, "- this is how Albuquerque assessed Malacca. With the capture of Malacca, the Portuguese cut off the main route connecting the countries of Asia Minor with the main supplier of spices - the Moluccas, and went to Pacific Ocean. A few years later they seize these islands and establish maritime trade with South China. Finally, in 1542, they reach the shores of distant Japan and establish the first European trading post there.

Carrying out this expansion to the East, the Portuguese conquerors used the methods of navigation of the sailors of the East, Arabic and Javanese maps of the countries and seas of South Asia. One map of a Javanese helmsman, which fell into the hands of the Portuguese in 1512, showed the Cape of Good Hope, the Portuguese possessions, the Red Sea, the Moluccas, the sea routes of the Chinese with straight roads through which ships pass, and the interior of the country. According to this map, the Portuguese ships moved through the seas of the Malay Archipelago to the Moluccas. The captains of the Portuguese ships were ordered by instructions to involve Ceylon and Javanese helmsmen as pilots.

Thus, the sea route from Western Europe to India and East Asia was opened. Together with this discovery, through conquests, a huge colonial empire of Portugal was created, stretching from Gibraltar to the Strait of Malacca. The Portuguese Viceroy of India, who was in Goa, was subject to five governors governing Mozambique, Hormuz, Muscat, Ceylon and Malacca. The Portuguese also subjugated the largest cities of East Africa. The most important opening of the sea route in the history of mankind, which connected Europe with Asia, was used by feudal Portugal for its own enrichment, for plundering and oppressing the peoples of Africa and Asia.

From that time until the digging of the Suez Canal in the 60s of the XIX century. the sea route around South Africa was the main road along which trade was carried out between the countries of Europe and Asia and the penetration of Europeans into the basins of the Indian and Pacific Oceans took place.

Discovery of America and Spanish conquests

In the spring of 1492, the Spaniards took Granada, the last stronghold of the Moors on the Iberian Peninsula, and on August 3 of the same year, three caravels of Christopher Columbus set off from the Spanish port of Paloe on a long voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in order to open the western route to India and East Asia. Not wanting to aggravate relations with Portugal, the Spanish kings Ferdinand and Isabella initially preferred to hide the real purpose of this trip. Columbus was appointed "admiral and viceroy of all the lands that he discovers in these seas-oceans", with the right to keep for his own benefit one tenth of all income from them, "whether it be pearls or precious stones, gold or silver, spices and others things and goods".

Biographical information about Columbus is very scarce. He was born in 1451 in Italy, not far from Genoa, in the family of a weaver, but there is no exact information about where he studied and when he became a navigator. It is known that in the 80s he lived in Lisbon and, obviously, participated in several voyages to the coast of Guinea, but these voyages were not what attracted him. He hatched a project to open the shortest route from Europe to Asia across the Atlantic Ocean; he studied the work of Pierre d'Agli (which was mentioned above), as well as the works of Toscanelli and other cosmographers of the 14th-15th centuries, who proceeded from the doctrine of the sphericity of the Earth, but significantly underestimated the length of the western route to Asia. However, to interest the Portuguese king in his Columbus’s project failed The “Council of Mathematicians” in Lisbon, which had previously discussed the plans of all expeditions, rejected his proposals as fantastic, and Columbus had to leave for Spain, where the project of opening a new route unknown to the Portuguese to Asia was supported by Ferdinand and Isabella.

On October 12, 1492, 69 days after departure from the Spanish port of Palos, Columbus' caravels, having overcome all the difficulties of the journey, reached San Salvador (apparently, modern Watling), one of the islands of the Bahamas group, located off the coast of a new, unknown Europeans of the mainland: this day is considered the date of the discovery of America. The success of the expedition was achieved not only thanks to the leadership of Columbus, but also to the stamina of the entire crew, recruited from the inhabitants of Palos and other seaside cities of Spain who knew the sea well. In total, Columbus made four expeditions to America, during which he discovered and explored Cuba, Hispaniola (Haiti), Jamaica and other islands of the Caribbean Sea, the eastern coast of Central America and the coast of Venezuela in the northern part of South America. On the island of Hispaniola, he founded a permanent colony, which later became the stronghold of the Spanish conquests in America.

During his expeditions, Columbus proved to be not only a passionate seeker of new lands, but also a man who strove for enrichment. In the diary of his first trip, he wrote: “I do everything possible to get to where I can find gold and spices ...” “Gold,” he writes from Jamaica, “is perfection Gold creates treasures, and the one who owns it , can do whatever he wants, and is even capable of introducing human souls into paradise "To increase the profitability of the islands he discovered, on which, as it soon turned out, there was not so much gold and spices, he suggested taking slaves out of there to Spain:" And let, - he writes to the Spanish kings, - even slaves die on the way, yet not all of them face such a fate.

Columbus was unable to geographically correctly assess his discoveries and conclude that he had discovered a new continent unknown to him. Until the end of his life, he assured everyone that he had reached the shores of Southeast Asia, about the fabulous riches of which Marco Polo wrote and the Spanish nobles and merchants dreamed , kings. He called the lands he discovered "Indies" and their inhabitants - "Indians". Even during his last trip, he reported to Spain that Cuba is South China, and the coast of Central America is part of the Malay Peninsula and that south of it there should be a strait through which you can get into rich India.

The news of the discovery of Columbus caused great alarm in Portugal. The Portuguese believed that the Spaniards had violated their right to own all the lands south and east of Cape Bojador, confirmed earlier by the Pope, and ahead of them in reaching the shores of India; they even prepared a military expedition to seize the lands discovered by Columbus. In the end, Spain turned to the pope to resolve this dispute. With a special bull, the pope blessed the seizure by Spain of all the lands discovered by Columbus. In Rome, these discoveries were evaluated in terms of spreading the Catholic faith and increasing the influence of the church. The dispute between Spain and Portugal was resolved by the pope as follows: Spain was granted the right to own all the lands located to the west of the line passing through the Atlantic Ocean in a hundred leagues (about 600 km) west of the islands Cape Verde In 1494, on the basis of this bull, Spain and Portugal divided the spheres of conquest among themselves under an agreement concluded in the Spanish city of Tordesillas; the boundary line between the colonial possessions of both states was established 370 leagues (over 2 thousand km) west of the above islands. Both states arrogated to themselves the right to pursue and seize all foreign ships that appeared in their waters, impose duties on them, judge their crews according to their laws and etc.

But the discoveries of Columbus gave Spain too little gold, and soon after the success of Vasco da Gama, the country became disillusioned with the Spanish "Indies", Columbus began to be called a deceiver, who instead of the fabulously rich India discovered a country of grief and misfortune, which became the place of death of many Castilian nobles. The Spanish kings deprived him of the monopoly right to make discoveries in the western direction and that share of the income received from the lands discovered by him, which was initially determined for him. He lost all his property, which went to cover debts to his creditors. Columbus, abandoned by all, died in 1506. Contemporaries forgot not a single navigator, they even gave the name of the mainland he discovered by the name of the Italian scientist Amerigo Vespucci, who in 1499-1504 took part in exploration of the shores of South America and whose letters aroused great interest in Europe. "These countries should be called the New World .." - he wrote.

After Columbus, other conquistadors in search of gold and slaves continued to expand the colonial possessions of Spain in America. In 1508, two Spanish Nin courts received royal patents to establish colonies on the American mainland. The following year, the Spanish colonization of the Isthmus of Panama began; in 1513, conquistador Vasco Nunez Balboa with a small the first detachment of Europeans crossed the Isthmus of Panama and went to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, which he called the "South Sea". A few years later, the Spaniards discovered the Yucatan and Mexico, and also reached the mouth of the Mississippi River. Attempts were made to find a strait connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific, and thus complete the work begun by Columbus - to reach the shores of East Asia by the western route. This strait was searched for in 1515-1516. the Spanish sailor de Solis, who, moving along the Brazilian beret, reached the La Plata River; the Portuguese navigators, who made their expeditions in great secrecy, also looked for him. In Europe, some geographers were so sure of the existence of this not yet open strait that put it on the maps in advance.

A new plan for a large expedition to search for a southwestern passage to the Pacific Ocean and reach Asia by the western route was proposed to the Spanish king by Fernando Magellan, a Portuguese sailor from poor nobles who lived in Spain. Magellan fought under the banner of the Portuguese king in Southwest Asia on land and at sea, participated in the capture of Malacca, in campaigns in North Africa, but returned to his homeland without great ranks and wealth; after being denied even a minor promotion by the king, he left Portugal. Magellan, while still in Portugal, began to develop an expedition project to search for the southwestern strait from the Atlantic Ocean to the open Balboa "South Sea", through which, as he assumed, it was possible to reach the Moluccas. In Madrid, in the "Council of Indian Affairs", which was in charge of all matters relating to the Spanish colonies, they became very interested in Magellan's projects; the council members liked his assertion that the Moluccas, under the terms of the Treaty of Tordesillas, should belong to Spain and that the shortest route to them was through the southwestern strait into the "South Sea", which was owned by Spain. Magellan was absolutely sure of the existence of this strait, although, as subsequent facts showed, the only source of his confidence was the maps on which this strait was plotted without any reason. Under the agreement concluded by Magellan with the Spanish king Charles I, he received five ships and the funds needed for the expedition; he was appointed admiral with the right to keep for his own benefit a twentieth of the income that the expedition and the new possessions that he added to the Spanish crown would bring. “Since I,” the king wrote to Magellan, “is known for certain that there are spices on the Molucco islands, I send you mainly in search of them, and it is my will that you go straight to these islands.”

On September 20, 1519, five ships of Magellan left San Lucar for this journey. It went on for three years. Having overcome the great difficulties of navigation in the unexplored southern part of the Atlantic Ocean, he found the southwestern strait, later named after him. The strait was much further south than indicated on the maps that Magellan believed. Having entered the "South Sea", the expedition headed for the shores of Asia. Magellan called the "South Sea" the Pacific Ocean, "because, as one of the expedition members reports, we have never experienced the slightest storm." For more than three months the flotilla sailed across the open ocean; part of the crew, who suffered greatly from hunger and thirst, died from scurvy. In the spring of 1521, Magellan reached the islands off the east coast of Asia, later called the Philippine.

Pursuing the goal of conquering the lands he discovered, Magellan intervened in the feud between two local rulers and was killed on April 27 in a skirmish with the inhabitants of one of these islands. The crew of the expedition, after the death of their admiral, completed this most difficult voyage; only two ships reached the Moluccas, and only one ship, the Victoria, was able to continue on its way to Spain with a cargo of spices. The crew of this ship, under the command of d "Elcano, made a long voyage to Spain around Africa, managing to avoid meeting with the Portuguese, who were ordered from Lisbon to detain all members of Magellan's expedition. Of the entire crew of Magellan's expedition, unparalleled in courage (265 people), only 18 returned to their homeland people; but "Victoria" brought a large cargo of spices, the sale of which covered all the expenses of the expedition and gave a significant profit.

The great navigator Magellan completed the work begun by Columbus - he reached the Asian mainland and the Moluccas by the western route, opening a new sea route from Europe to Asia, although it did not gain practical importance due to the distance and difficulty of navigation. This was the first in the history of mankind circumnavigation; it irrefutably proved the spherical shape of the earth and the inseparability of the oceans washing the land.

In the same year, when Magellan went in search of a new sea route to the Moluccas, a small detachment of Spanish conquistadors, who had horses and armed with 13 cannons, set off from Cuba to the interior of Mexico to conquer the Aztec state, whose wealth was not inferior to the wealth of India. hidalgo Hernando Cortes. Cortes, who came from a family of impoverished hidalgos, according to one of the participants in this campaign, "had little money, but a lot of debt." But, having acquired plantations in Cuba, he was able to organize an expedition to Mexico, partly at his own expense.

In their clashes with the Aztecs, the Spaniards, who possessed firearms, steel armor and horses not previously seen in America and instilled panic in the Indians, as well as using improved combat tactics, received an overwhelming superiority of forces. In addition, the resistance of the Indian tribes to foreign conquerors was weakened by the enmity between the Aztecs and the tribes they conquered. This explains the rather easy victories of the Spanish troops.

Having landed on the Mexican coast, Cortes led his detachment to the capital of the Aztec state, the city of Tenochtitlan (modern Mexico City). The path to the capital passed through the area of ​​Indian tribes who were at war with the Aztecs, and this made the trip easier. Entering Tenochtitlan, the Spaniards were amazed at the size and wealth of the Aztec capital. Soon they managed to treacherously capture the supreme ruler of the Aztecs, Montezuma, and on his behalf begin to rule the country. They demanded from the Indian leaders subject to Montezuma an oath of allegiance to the Spanish King I, paying tribute in gold. In the building where the Spanish detachment was located, a secret room was discovered, in which there was a rich treasure of gold items and precious stones. All the gold things were poured into square bars and divided among the participants in the campaign, and most of it went to Cortes, the king and governor of Cuba.

Soon a great uprising broke out in the country against the power of greedy and cruel foreigners; the rebels laid siege to the Spanish detachment, which sat down with the captive supreme ruler in his household. With heavy losses, Cortés managed to break out of the siege and withdraw from Tenochtitlan; many Spaniards died because they rushed to riches and took so much that they could hardly walk.

And this time, the Spaniards were helped by those Indian tribes who took their side and were now afraid of the revenge of the Aztecs. In addition, Cortes replenished his squad with Spaniards who arrived from Cuba. Having gathered an army of 10,000, Cortes again approached the capital of Mexico and laid siege to the city. The siege was long; during it, most of the population of this populous city died of hunger, thirst and disease. August 1521, the Spaniards finally entered the ruined Aztec capital.

The Aztec state became a Spanish colony; the Spaniards seized a lot of gold and precious stones in this country, distributed the lands to their colonists, and turned the Indian population into slaves and serfs. “The Spanish conquest,” says Engels about the Aztecs, “cut off any further independent development of them” ( F. Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Gospolitizdat, 1953, p. 23.).

Soon after the conquest of Mexico, the Spaniards conquered Guatemala and Honduras in Central America, and in 1546, after several invasions, they subjugated the Yucatan Peninsula, inhabited by the Mayan people. “There were too many rulers and they plotted against each other too much,” one of the Indians explained the defeat of the Maya.

The Spanish conquest in North America did not extend beyond Mexico. This is due to the fact that in the areas located north of Mexico, the Spanish seekers of profit did not find cities and states rich in gold and silver; on Spanish maps, these areas of the American mainland were usually indicated by the inscription: "Lands that do not generate income."

After the conquest of Mexico, the Spanish conquistadors turned all their attention to the south, to mountainous areas South America, rich in gold and silver. In the 30s, the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, an illiterate man who was a swineherd in his youth, undertook the conquest of the "golden kingdom", the state of the Incas in Peru; about his fabulous wealth, he heard stories from local residents on the Isthmus of Panama during the Balboa campaign, of which he was a member. With a detachment of 200 people and 50 horses, he invaded this state, having managed to use the struggle of two heir brothers for the throne of the country's supreme ruler; he captured one of them - Atahualpa, and on his behalf began to rule the country. A large ransom was taken from Atahualpa in gold things, many times greater than the treasure that the detachment of Cortes took possession of; this booty was divided among the members of the detachment, for which all the gold was turned into ingots, destroying the most valuable monuments of Peruvian art. The ransom did not give Atahualpa the promised freedom; the Spaniards treacherously put him on trial and executed him. After that, Pizarro occupied the capital of the state - Cusco and became the complete ruler of the country (1532); he put on the throne the supreme ruler of his adherent, one of the nephews of Atahualpa. In Cuzco, the Spaniards plundered the treasures of the rich temple of the Sun, and in its building they created a Catholic monastery; in Potosi (Bolivia) they seized the richest silver mines.

In the early 40s, the Spanish conquistadors conquered Chile, and the Portuguese (in the 30s-40s) - Brazil, which was discovered by Cabral in 1500 during his expedition to India (Cabral's ships were on the way to the Cape of Good Hope to the west by the South Equatorial Current). In the second half of the XVI century. The Spaniards took control of Argentina.

Thus the New World was discovered and the colonial possessions of feudal-absolutist Spain and Portugal were created on the American mainland. The Spanish conquest of America interrupted the independent development of the peoples of the American continent and placed them under the yoke of colonial enslavement.

Discoveries in North America and Australia

Despite the agreement on the division of the spheres of conquest between Porgalia and Spain, sailors and merchants from other European countries began to penetrate into unexplored parts of the globe in search of profit and wealth. So, John Cabot (Italian Giovanni Caboto, who moved to England), who went on an expedition to find a northwestern route to the Indian Ocean, first reached Newfoundland or the Labrador Peninsula in 1497, and his son, Sebastian Cabot, in 1498 reached northeast coast of North America and explored it. Subsequently, English and French navigators explored the eastern part of North America, and the Dutch, as a result of a series of voyages made during the 17th century, discovered Australia, about which ancient geographers had vague information. In 1606, a Dutch ship under the command of Willem Janz reached the northern coast of Australia for the first time, and in 1642-1644. The Dutch navigator Tasman made two voyages to the Australian shores and, passing south of Australia to the island of Tasmania he discovered, proved that Australia was an independent new continent.

London merchants, in their own words, "seeing how surprisingly quickly the wealth of the Spaniards and Portuguese is growing due to the discovery of new countries and the search for new trading markets", organized in 1552 an expedition of three ships under the command of Willoughby, who attempted to find a northeast passage to China, rounding the coast of Siberia. The ships of the Willoughby expedition in the Barents Sea were separated by a storm, two of them were covered with ice in the southern part of this sea, and their entire crew froze, and the third passed into the White Sea, reached the mouth of the Northern Dvina; his captain Chancellor traveled to Moscow and was received by Ivan the Terrible. In 1556 and 1580. the British again tried to find the northeastern passage, but their ships could not pass further than the entrance to the Kara Sea due to solid ice.

Dutch merchants at the end of the 16th century. three expeditions were sent to search for this passage, led by the Dutch navigator Bill Barents, but these ships could not pass east of Novaya Zemlya, on which Barents wintered during his last expedition (1596-1597), as his ship was covered with ice.

Russian geographical discoveries of the 16th - 17th centuries.

The Russian people contributed to the great geographical discoveries first half of the 17th century significant contribution. Russian travelers and navigators made a number of discoveries (mainly in the northeast of Asia) that enriched world science.

The reason for the increased attention of Russians to geographical discoveries was the further development of commodity-money relations in the country and the associated process of folding the all-Russian market, as well as the gradual inclusion of Russia in the world market. During this period, two main directions of the northeast were clearly outlined (Siberia and Far East) and southeast (Central Asia, Mongolia, China), along which Russian travelers and sailors moved.

Of great educational importance for contemporaries were the trade and diplomatic trips of Russian people in the 16th-17th centuries. to the countries of the East, a survey of the shortest land routes for communication with the states of Central and Central Asia and with China.

By the middle of the XVII century. the Russians thoroughly studied and described the routes to Central Asia. Detailed and valuable information of this kind was contained in the embassy reports (“article lists”) of the Russian ambassadors I. D. Khokhlov (1620-1622), Anisim Gribov (1641-1643 and 1646-1647) and others.

Distant China aroused close attention among the Russian people. Back in 1525, while in Rome, the Russian ambassador Dmitry Gerasimov informed the writer Pavel Iovius that it was possible to travel from Europe to China by water through the northern seas. Thus, Gerasimov expressed a bold idea about the development of the Northern Route from Europe to Asia. This idea, thanks to Jovius, who published a special book on Muscovy in the Gerasimov embassy, ​​became widely known in Western Europe and was received with lively interest. It is possible that the organization of the expeditions of Willoughby and Barents was caused by the messages of the Russian ambassador. In any case, the search for the Northern Sea Route to the east was already in the middle of the 16th century. led to the establishment of direct maritime links between Western Europe and Russia.

The first reliable evidence of a journey to China is information about the embassy of the Cossack Ivan Petlin in 1618-1619. Petlin from Tomsk through the territory of Mongolia passed to China and visited Beijing. Returning to his homeland, he presented in Moscow "a drawing and painting about the Chinese region." The information collected as a result of Petlin's trip about the routes to China, about the natural resources and economy of Mongolia and China contributed to the expansion of the geographical horizons of contemporaries.

Of great importance in the history of geographical discoveries of that era was the survey of the vast expanses of the north and northeast of Asia from the Ural Range to the coast of the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, that is, all of Siberia.

The annexation of Siberia was started in 1581 by a campaign of a detachment of the Cossack ataman Ermak Timofeevich. His detachment, consisting of 840 people, carried away by rumors about the untold riches of the Siberian Khanate, was equipped at the expense of large landowners and salt producers of the Urals Stroganovs. The government-supported campaign of Yermak (1581-1584) led to the fall of the Siberian Khanate and the annexation of Western Siberia to the Russian state.

Even in the middle of the XVI century. Sailings of Russian polar sailors from the European part of the country to the Gulf of Ob and to the mouth of the Yenisei are mentioned. They moved along the coast of the Arctic Ocean on small keel sailing ships - koches, well adapted to sailing in the ice of the Arctic due to the egg-shaped hull, which reduced the danger of ice compression. Used by Russian sailors of the XVI-XVII centuries. compass ("womb") and maps. In the first two decades of the 17th century there was already a fairly regular water communication of the West Siberian cities with Mangazeya along the Ob, the Gulf of Ob and the Arctic Ocean (the so-called "Mangazeya passage"). The same message was maintained between Arkhangelsk and Mangazeya. According to contemporaries, from Arkhangelsk to "Mangazeya, many trading and industrial people walk at night with all sorts of German (i.e. foreign, Western European) goods and bread." It was extremely important to establish the fact that the Yenisei flows into the very “Cold Sea”, along which people from Western Europe swim to Arkhangelsk. This discovery belongs to the Russian merchant Kondraty Kurochkin, who was the first to explore the fairway of the lower Yenisei up to the mouth.

A serious blow to the "Mangazeya move" was inflicted by government prohibitions of 1619-1620. use the sea route to Mangazeya, aimed at preventing the penetration of foreigners there.

Moving east into the taiga and tundra of Eastern Siberia, the Russians discovered one of the largest rivers in Asia - the Lena. Among the northern expeditions to the Lena, the Penda campaign (until 1630) stands out. Starting his journey with 40 companions from Turukhansk, he went through the entire Lower Tunguska, crossed the portage and reached the Lena. Going down the Lena central regions Yakutia, Penda then sailed along the same river in the opposite direction almost to the upper reaches. From here, passing through the Buryat steppes, he got to the Angara (Upper Tunguska), the first Russian sailed down the entire Angara, overcoming its famous rapids, after which he went to the Yenisei, and returned along the Yenisei to his starting point - Turukhansk. Penda and his companions made an unparalleled circular journey of several thousand kilometers through difficult terrain.

In 1633, brave seafarers Ivan Rebrov and Ilya Perfilyev went east from the mouth of the Lena at night, who reached the river by sea. Yana, and in 1636, the same Rebrov made a new sea voyage and reached the mouth of the Indigirka.

Almost simultaneously, detachments of Russian service and industrial people (Posnik Ivanova and others) moved along the mainland in a northeast direction, discovering the mentioned rivers from land. Posnik Ivanov "and his comrades" made their long and difficult journey through the mountain ranges on horseback.

An important discovery in northeast Asia ended in the early 40s of the 17th century. Expedition of Mikhail Stadukhin. The detachment of the Cossack foreman and merchant Stadukhin, in which Semyon Dezhnev was, descended on a koch along the Indigirka, in 1643 reached the “Kov River” by sea, that is, reached the mouth of the Kolyma River. Here the Nizhne-Kolyma winter hut was laid, from which, a few years later, Cossack Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnev and industrial man Fedot Alekseev (known by the surname Popov) set out on their famous voyage around the northeastern tip of the Asian mainland.

An outstanding event of this era was the discovery in 1648 of the strait between America and Asia, made by Dezhnev and Fedot Alekseev (Popov).

Back in 1647, Semyon Dezhnev tried to go by sea to the mysterious Anadyr River, about which there were rumors among the Russian people, but “the ice didn’t let the river through to Anadyr”, and he was forced to return back. But the determination to achieve the intended goal did not leave Dezhnev and his comrades. On June 20, 1648, a new expedition set off from the mouth of the Kolyma in search of the Anadyr River on seven horses. The expedition, led by Dezhnev and Alekseev, included about a hundred people. Soon after the start of the campaign, four kochas disappeared from sight and the participants in this extremely difficult ice voyage had no further news about them. The remaining three ships under the command of Dezhnev, Alekseev and Gerasim Ankudinov continued their journey to the northeast. Not far from the Chukotka nose (later named after Dezhnev), Koch Ankudinov died. The crews of the other two ships took on board the wrecked and stubbornly advanced across the Arctic Ocean. In September 1648, the Dezhnev-Alekseev expedition rounded the extreme northeastern tip of Asia - the Chukchi (or Bolshoi Kamenny) nose and passed through the strait separating America from Asia (later called Bering Strait). In bad sea weather, Kochi Dezhnev and Alekseev lost sight of each other. Koch Dezhnev, on which there were 25 people, was carried along the waves for a long time and, finally, was thrown onto the shore of the sea, which was later called the Bering Sea. Semyon Dezhnev then moved with his comrades deep into the mainland and after a heroic 10-week transition, during which his participants walked through a completely unfamiliar country “cold and hungry, naked and barefoot”, he reached the goal of his expedition - the Anadyr River. So it was, an outstanding geographical discovery was made, which proved that America was separated by sea from Asia and was an isolated continent, and a sea route around Northeast Asia was opened.

There are reasons to believe that Kamchatka in the middle of the 17th century. was discovered by Russian people. According to later reports, Koch Fedot Alekseev and his companions reached Kamchatka, where the Russians lived for a long time among the Itelmens. The memory of this fact was preserved among the local population of Kamchatka, and the Russian scientist of the first half of the 18th century. Krasheninnikov reported about him in his work "Description of the Land of Kamchatka". There is an assumption that part of the ships of the Dezhnev expedition, which disappeared on the way to the Chukchi nose, reached Alaska, where they founded a Russian "settlement. In 1937, during earthworks on the Kenai Peninsula (Alaska), the remains of dwellings of three hundred years ago were discovered, which scientists attributed to those built by Russian people.

In addition, Dezhnev and his companions are credited with discovering the Diomede Islands, where the Eskimos lived, and exploring the Anadyr River basin.

The discovery of Dezhnev - Alekseev was reflected on the geographical maps of Russia in the 17th century, which marked the free passage from the Kolyma to the Amur.

During 1643-1651. Russian detachments of V. Poyarkov and E. Khabarov made campaigns on the Amur, which delivered a number of valuable information about this river not studied by Europeans.

So, over a relatively short historical period (from the 80s of the 16th century to the 40s of the 17th century), Russian people traveled through the steppes, taiga, tundra through the whole of Siberia, sailed through the seas of the Arctic and made a number of outstanding geographical discoveries.

Consequences of geographical discoveries for Western Europe

During the XV-XVII centuries. thanks to the bold expeditions of navigators and travelers from many European countries, most of the earth's surface, seas and oceans washing it were discovered and explored; Many inland areas of America, Asia, Africa and Australia have fallen into the unknown. The most important sea routes were laid that connected the continents with each other. But at the same time, geographical discoveries marked the beginning of the monstrous enslavement and extermination of the peoples of open countries, which became the object of the most shameless robbery and exploitation for European profit-seekers: treachery, deceit, consumption of local residents were the main methods of the conquerors. This price was the creation in Western Europe of the conditions for the emergence of capitalist production.

The colonial system, which arose as a result of geographical discoveries, contributed to the accumulation in the hands of the bourgeoisie in Europe of large amounts of money necessary for the organization of large-scale capitalist production, and also published a market for its products, thus being one of the levers of the process of so-called primitive accumulation. With the establishment of the colonial system, the world market began to take shape, which served as a powerful impetus to the emergence and development of capitalist relations in Western Europe. “The colonies,” writes Marx, “provided a market for rapidly emerging manufactories, and the monopoly possession of this market ensured increased accumulation. Treasures obtained outside of Europe through robbery, enslavement of the natives, murders flowed into the metropolis and then turned into capital.

The so-called price revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries also contributed to the rise of the European bourgeoisie. It was caused by the importation from America to Europe of a large amount of gold and silver mined by the cheap labor of serfs and slaves. In the middle of the XVI century. in the colonies, gold and silver were mined 5 times more than they were mined in Europe before the conquest of America, and the total number of voiced coins circulating in European countries increased more than 4 times over the 16th century. This influx of cheap gold and silver into Europe led to a sharp decrease in the purchasing power of money and to a strong increase in prices (2-3 times or more) for all goods, both agricultural and industrial. In the city, everyone suffered from this rise in prices, he received wages, and the bourgeoisie enriched itself. In the countryside, the main beneficiaries were those nobles who started a new type of economy, using hired labor and selling products to the market at high prices, and wealthy peasants, who also sold a significant part of agricultural products. In addition, landowners who leased land on a short-term lease benefited. Finally, the long-term tenants, the peasant holders, who paid the traditional fixed cash rent, benefited. leased out credential terms on the condition of receiving a fixed annuity in cash.

Where it seemed possible, the feudal lords compensated for their losses by intensifying their offensive against the peasants, by increasing the monetary rent, by switching from cash quitrent to natural duties, or by driving the peasants off the land. The "price revolution" also affected the poorest peasants, who were forced to partly live by selling their labor power, and agricultural wage workers. Marx writes about the “price revolution”: “The consequence of the increase in the means of exchange was, on the one hand, the depreciation of wages and land rent, and on the other hand, the growth of industrial profits. In other words: to the extent that the class of landowners and the class of working people, the feudal lords and the people, have declined, the class of capitalists, the bourgeoisie, has risen to the same extent. K. Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., vol. 4, p. 154.) Thus, the "price revolution" was also one of the factors contributing to the development of capitalism in Western Europe.

As a result of the great geographical discoveries, Europe's ties with the countries of Africa, South and East Asia increased, and relations with America were established for the first time. Trade has become global. The center of economic life moved from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, the countries of Southern Europe fell into decline, primarily the Italian cities through which Europe had previously connected with the East, new centers of trade rose up: Lisbon - in Portugal, Seville - in Spain, Antwerp - in the Netherlands. Antwerp became the richest city in Europe, colonial goods, especially spices, were traded on a large scale, large-scale international trade and credit operations were carried out, which was facilitated by the fact that, unlike other cities, complete freedom of trade and credit transactions was established in Antwerp. In 1531, a special building was built in Antwerp for the implementation of trade and financial transactions - the stock exchange with a characteristic inscription on the pediment: "For the needs of merchants of all nations and languages." Concluding a trade deal on the stock exchange, the buyer examined only samples of goods. Loan obligations of the bill were quoted on the stock exchange as securities; a new type of profit appeared - stock speculation.

The era of the great geographical discoveries is the most important stage in the history of mankind. This is a time when the outlines of the continents, seas and oceans are becoming more accurate, technical devices are being improved, and the leading countries of that time are sending sailors in search of new rich lands. In this lesson, you will learn about the sea expeditions of Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan, as well as the discovery of new lands by them.

background

Among the reasons for the Great geographical discoveries are:

Economic

After the era of the Crusades, Europeans developed strong trade ties with the East. In the East, Europeans bought spices, fabrics, jewelry. In the XV century. overland caravan routes, along which Europeans traded with eastern countries, were captured by the Turks. The task of finding a sea route to India appeared.

Technological

The compass and the astrolabe (an instrument for measuring latitude and longitude) were improved.

New types of ships appeared - caravel, carakka and galleon. They were distinguished by their spaciousness and powerful sailing equipment.

Navigation charts were invented - portolans.

Now Europeans could make not only traditional coastal voyages (i.e., mainly along the coast), but also go far into the open sea.

Events

1445- the expedition organized by Henry the Navigator reached the Green Cape (the western point of Africa). Madeira Island was discovered Canary Islands, part of the Azores.

1453- Constantinople is captured by the Turks.

1471 The Portuguese reached the equator for the first time.

1488- Expedition Bartolomeu Dias reached the southernmost point of Africa - the Cape of Good Hope.

1492- Christopher Columbus discovered the islands of San Salvador, Haiti, Cuba in the Caribbean.

1497-1499- Vasco da Gama reached the Indian port of Calicut, rounding Africa. For the first time, a route was opened to the East across the Indian Ocean.

1519- Ferdinand Magellan goes on an expedition in which he discovers the Pacific Ocean. And in 1521 it reaches the Mariana and Philippine Islands.

Members

Rice. 2. Astrolabe ()

Rice. 3. Caravel ()

Successes have also been made in cartography. European cartographers began to draw maps with more accurate outlines of the coasts of Europe, Asia and North America. The Portuguese invented navigational charts. On them, in addition to the outlines of the coast, depicted settlements, obstacles encountered on the way, as well as the location of ports. These navigation charts were called portolans.

The pioneers were Spaniards and Portuguese. The idea of ​​conquering Africa was born in Portugal. However, the knightly cavalry was helpless in the sands. Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator(Fig. 4) decided to try the sea route along the west coast of Africa. The expeditions he organized discovered the island of Madeira, part of the Azores, the Canary Islands. In 1445, the Portuguese reached the western point of Africa - Cape Green . Somewhat later, the coast of the Gulf of Guinea was discovered. A large amount of gold and ivory was found there. Hence the name - Gold Coast, Ivory Coast. At the same time, African slaves were discovered, which were traded by local leaders. Portugal became the first European country to sell live goods.

Rice. 4. Henry the Navigator ()

Already after the death of Henry the Navigator, the Portuguese reached the equator in 1471. In 1488 the expedition Bartolomeu Dias reached the southern end of Africa - Cape of Good Hope. Rounding Africa, this expedition entered the Indian Ocean. However, due to the rebellion of the sailors, Bartolomeu Dias was forced to return. His path continued Vasco da Gama (Fig. 5), which in 1497-1499. rounded Africa and after an 8-month voyage arrived in the Indian port of Calicut (Fig. 6).

Rice. 5. Vasco da Gama ()

Rice. 6. The opening of the sea route to India, the route of Vasco da Gama ()

Simultaneously with Portugal, the search for a new sea route to India began Spain, which at that time was ruled Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. Christopher Columbus(Fig. 7) proposed a new plan - to reach India, moving west, across the Atlantic Ocean. Christopher Columbus shared the view that the earth is spherical. On August 3, 1492, Columbus on three caravels "Santa Maria", "Nina" and "Pinta" set off from Spain in search of India (Fig. 8). On October 12, 1492, a shot rang out on the Pinta caravel. This was the signal: the sailors had reached the island they named San Salvador, which in translation means "holy savior." Having explored the island, they went south and discovered two more islands: Haiti (then Hispaniola) and the island of Cuba.

Rice. 7. Christopher Columbus ()

Rice. 8. Route of Christopher Columbus ()

The first expedition of Columbus lasted 225 days and discovered caribbean sea. During the next three expeditions, Columbus discovered the coast of Central America and the northern coast of South America. However, the Spanish crown was not satisfied with the amount of gold that entered the country. Soon Columbus was turned away. He died in 1506 in poverty, confident that he had discovered a new sea route to India. Mainland, discovered by Columbus, originally called West Indies(Western India). Only later the mainland was given the name America.

The rivalry between Spain and Portugal led to the first division of the world in history. AT 1494 was concluded Treaty of Tordesillas, according to which a conditional meridian was drawn along the Atlantic Ocean somewhat west of the Azores. All newly discovered lands and seas to the west of it were to belong to Spain, and to the east to Portugal. However Ferdinand Magellan's first circumnavigation of the world corrected this document.

Back in 1513, the Spaniard Vasco de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean. He called it then the South Sea. In the autumn of 1519, on five caravels with a team of 253 sailors, Fernand Magellan (Fig. 9) set off on his journey (Fig. 10). His goal was to find a way across the Atlantic Ocean to the Moluccas (Spice Islands). After a year of travel, Magellan's team entered a narrow strait, which was later named Strait of Magellan. After passing through it, Magellan's team managed to enter the previously unknown ocean. This ocean is called Quiet.

Rice. 9. Ferdinand Magellan ()

Rice. 10. The first round-the-world trip of Ferdinand Magellan ()

In March 1521 Magellan's team reached Mariana Islands, and then landed in the Philippines, where Magellan himself died in a skirmish with the locals. His team managed to reach the Moluccas. Three years later, only one ship with 17 sailors returned home. Magellan's first circumnavigation of the world proved that the Earth is spherical.

European exploration of the New World took the form conquests - conquests. Together with the conquest, the resettlement of colonists from Europe to the New World begins.

The great geographical discoveries changed the picture of the world. First, it has been proven that the Earth is spherical. A new continent, America, was also discovered, as well as a new ocean, the Pacific. The outlines of many continents, seas and oceans have been refined. The great geographical discoveries were the first step towards the creation of a world market. They shifted the trade routes. So, trading cities Venice and Genoa lost their key role in European trade. Their place was taken by ocean ports: Lisbon, London, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Seville. Due to the influx of precious metals into Europe from the New World, a price revolution took place. Prices for precious metals fell, while prices for products and raw materials for production rose.

The great geographical discoveries marked the beginning of the colonial redistribution of the world and the dominance of Europeans in Asia, Africa and America. The exploitation of slave labor and trade with the colonies allowed European trading circles to enrich themselves, which became one of the prerequisites for the formation of capitalism. Also, the colonization of America led to the destruction of the oldest American cultures. The great geographical discoveries were one of the causes of the food revolution in Europe. Previously unknown crops were introduced: corn, tomatoes, cocoa beans, potatoes and tobacco.

Bibliography

1. Boytsov, M.A. Magellan's Way: Early Modern Times. History reading book. - M., 2006.
2. Vedyushkin V.A., Burin S.N. Textbook on the history of modern times, grade 7. - M., 2013.
3. Verlinden C., Mathis G. “Conquerors of America. Columbus, Cortes. Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 1997.
4. Lange P.V. Like the sun ... The life of Ferdinand Magellan and the first circumnavigation of the world. - M.: Progress, 1988.
; Artist
5. What discovery is Ferdinand Magellan famous for, and what continent was discovered by Christopher Columbus?
6. Do you know any other famous navigators and the territories they discovered?

GREAT GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES, the term accepted in the literature to refer to the largest geographical discoveries made by European travelers in the period from the end of the 15th century (when the idea of ​​a continuous sea route to the countries of the East first appeared in Europe) to the middle of the 17th century (when only sea routes to these countries were already discovered, and as for others, it has been established that they, if they exist, cannot be of practical importance). Other dates are found in foreign literature, usually the middle of the 15th - the middle of the 16th centuries. The term "Great geographical discoveries" is conditional, but there are reasons for its use: the most important geographical discoveries have never been made with such intensity and had such significance for the development of Europe and the whole world as during this period. Since the end of the 20th century, on the eve of and during the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America and the sea route to India, a sharp controversy has unfolded around the role of the Great Geographical Discoveries. In particular, public figures and scientists in a number of Latin American, Asian and African countries refused to "celebrate the beginning of their oppression" and denied the term "discovery" itself, replacing it with a "meeting of cultures" or "concealment" of one culture by another.

Background of the Great geographical discoveries. A number of reasons contributed to the Great geographical discoveries. The growth of cities and the development of commodity-money relations in Europe led to a shortage of precious metals, which necessitated the search for new lands, where they hoped to find gold, silver, as well as spices, ivory (in southern countries), valuable furs and walrus tusks (in the north). The development of the European economy assumed closer trade ties with the East, which was considered the center of all wealth. In the middle of the 15th century, trade routes to the East through Asia Minor and Syria were blocked as a result of Ottoman conquests; there was an urgent need to open direct sea routes for trade without intermediaries. Religious and political reasons also played their role. After the fall of Byzantium, the Ottomans threatened all of Europe, and in search of allies, Christians hoped to find fellow believers in the East. The legend about the Christian state of Prester John, known since the 12th century, was revived, which from the 15th century began to be identified with Christian Ethiopia. The Europeans sought to find this power and conclude a military alliance with it against the Muslims in order to stop the Ottoman offensive, recapture Constantinople and, resuming the Crusades, return the Holy Sepulcher.

Great geographical discoveries became possible thanks to the achievements of European science and technology. High-speed and maneuverable sailing ships- caravels; instruments and tables that made it possible to plot the desired course and determine the location of the vessel (astrolabe, compass, Regiomontanian tables). More accurate steel geographic Maps. An important role was played by the assumption that the Earth was spherical, which had spread towards the end of the 15th century. At the same time, the invention of printing in Europe in the middle of the 15th century made reference literature on navigation and descriptions relatively accessible. latest discoveries, prompting further searches. The successful expansion was facilitated by the naval superiority of the Europeans over the peoples they encountered.

During this period, Spain and Portugal were the most prepared for the Great geographical discoveries, which had convenient ports, long and rich maritime traditions; them geographical position promoted navigation in the Atlantic Ocean. Portugal, having completed the Reconquista on its territory in the middle of the 13th century, was ready for significant maritime expansion by the beginning of the 15th century. By the end of the 15th century, with the completion of the Spanish Reconquista and the unification of the country, Spain also prepared for sea voyages, using the captured Canary Islands, which became a convenient base for further expeditions.

Traditionally, the Great geographical discoveries are divided into 2 periods: the end of the 15th - the middle of the 16th century - the period of the most important discoveries, in which Portugal and Spain played the main role; the middle of the 16th - the middle of the 17th centuries - the period of the predominance of the geographical discoveries of England and Holland. At the same time, Russian explorers made outstanding discoveries in Siberia and the Far East.

First period. By the beginning of the 1st period of the Great Geographical Discoveries, the Portuguese, having been moving south along the western coast of Africa for several decades, were mastering the wealth of the occupied territories (reached the Gulf of Guinea). An outstanding role in organizing their voyages for 40 years (until 1460) was played by Enrique the Navigator. It is possible that the turn of the coastline to the east at the entrance to the Gulf of Guinea, which was not provided for on the maps of that time, is associated with the emergence of the very idea of ​​a sea route to the countries of the East, which contradicted the views of the ancient geographer Claudius Ptolemy. In the 1460-70s, the advance of the Portuguese to the south was temporarily suspended, since it took time to develop the riches of the coast of the Gulf of Guinea (gold, ivory, etc.); it resumed in the 1480s at a faster pace. In two expeditions in 1482-84 and 1484-86 (or 1487), D. Kahn advanced 2500 km southward, reaching the coast of the Namib Desert (22° south latitude). In 1487-1488, B. Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa and entered the Indian Ocean.

In the 1480s, H. Columbus put forward a project for a western route to the countries of the East. In the voyage of 1492-93 under the Spanish flag, he first crossed the Atlantic Ocean in subtropical latitudes and discovered lands beyond the ocean - the Bahamas, the island of Cuba, the island of Haiti. 10/12/1492, when he first landed on Bahamas, is considered the official date of the discovery of America. Later, Columbus made 3 more voyages (1493-96, 1498-1500, 1502-04), during which the discovery of the Greater Antilles was completed, many Small Antilles, as well as sections of the coast of the mainland near the mouth of the Orinoco River and from the Yucatan Peninsula to the Gulf of Darien. The differences between Spain and Portugal regarding the rights to open lands were settled by the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. However, other countries, whose interests the treaty ignored, did not want to recognize it, in 1497 England joined the Great Geographical Discoveries: J. Cabot, trying to reach Japan and China, discovered the island of Newfoundland (1497) and the coast of North America (1498).

Further discoveries are connected, first of all, with Portuguese expeditions in the Indian Ocean basin, Spanish and Portuguese expansion in Latin America. In the voyage of 1497-99, Vasco da Gama discovered a continuous sea route from Western Europe around South Africa to India (1498). In 150, the Portuguese P. Alvaris Cabral, on his way to India, discovered a section of the coast of Brazil, after which its colonization by the Portuguese began; in the same voyage, the island of Madagascar was discovered. Having established themselves under the viceroys of Almeida and Albuquerque on the east coast of Africa and the west coast of India, having crushed the resistance of Egypt in the naval battle of Diu (1509), the Portuguese captured Malacca in 1511, which became the base for further advancement. In 1512 they reached the Spice Islands (Moluccas), later China and Japan. The Spaniards were more active in the New World: A. de Ojeda and A. Vespucci (1499-1500), V. Yanes Pinson (1499-1500), D. de Lepe (1499-1500), R. de Bastidas (1500-1502) and others traced the coast of South America from the Gulf of Darien to 16° north latitude. In 1509-28, the Spaniards explored the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico; in 1513, J. Ponce de Leon, in search of the legendary "source eternal youth"Discovered the Florida Peninsula and the Gulf Stream. A. Alvarez de Pineda in 1519 passed along the entire northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. But already at the beginning of the 16th century, it became obvious that the lands discovered across the ocean were not Asia, but a new, previously unknown, part of the world. But while the wealth of America was not yet discovered, it was perceived as an obstacle on the way to the countries of the East. In 1513, V. Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and went to the Pacific Ocean, which he called the South Sea. In search of a strait leading to this sea, D. Diaz de Solis in 1515-16 explored the Gulf of La Plata. The Spanish expedition of F. Magellan managed to find the strait, whose ships then crossed the Pacific Ocean and reached the Philippines and the Moluccas, realizing the plan of Columbus - to pave the western route to the countries of the East. After the death of Magellan, part of his companions, led by J. S. Elcano, returned to Spain through the Indian and Atlantic oceans, making the first ever circumnavigation of the world (1519-22).

At the same time, a conquest unfolded in America. After the expeditions of F. Hernandez de Cordova and J. Grijalva in 1517-18 explored the way to Mexico, the Aztec power located in its central part was conquered by E. Cortes (1519-21). In the 1520-30s, the Spaniards (Cortez, P. de Alvarado, C. de Olid, etc.) conquered other regions of Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras, traced the Pacific coast of Central America from the California Peninsula to modern Panama. In 1527-29, A. de Saavedra sailed from Mexico to the Moluccas and China, he could not return due to headwinds, but discovered part of the Admiralty, Marshall and Caroline Islands. A. Nunez Caveza de Vaca (1529-36), E. de Soto (1539-42) and F. Vasquez de Coronado (1540-42) explored the southern part of the modern USA. In 1526-35, conquistadors led by F. Pizarro reached the Inca state of Tahuantinsuyu and conquered its central regions. In 1535-37, D. de Almagro made a trip to the south from Peru, he was the first European to cross the Andes and reach 36 ° south latitude. In 1540-53, P. de Valdivia, trying to conquer Chile, moved south to 40 ° south latitude. In 1536-37, G. Jimenez de Quesada, in search of the gold-rich country of Eldorado, discovered and conquered mountainous Colombia, where the highly developed civilization of the Chibcha Muisca was located. The lower and middle reaches of the Orinoco River were explored in 1531-32 by D. de Ordas, and F. de Orellana in 1541-42 crossed South America in its widest part along the Amazon. Other conquistadors, advancing from the Gulf of La Plata, examined the course of the Paraná and Uruguay rivers.

French explorers have been participating in the Great Geographical Discoveries since the 1520s. In search of a passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, J. Verrazzano in 1524 passed along the east coast of North America from 34 to 46 ° north latitude, and in 1534-36, J. Cartier explored the bay and the St. Lawrence River (before the confluence of the river Ottawa). Having received information about the Great Lakes, he decided that we were talking about the Pacific Ocean or about the passage to it. The lakes were discovered by the French in the 1620s and 30s (S. Champlain and others).

Second period. At the beginning of the 2nd period of the Great geographical discoveries, Spain and Portugal, having captured vast territories, began to develop them and lost the initiative to England, and then to Holland. Since the already open sea routes to the countries of the East around Africa and America were controlled by Portugal and Spain (and the latter was also too long and risky), at that time the search for the Northwest Passage and the Northeast Passage was especially active. In 1553, the English expedition of H. Willoughby and R. Chancellor was sent in search of the Northeast Passage, establishing trade relations with Russia. At the end of the 16th century, an active search for the Northeast Passage was conducted by Holland, which equipped three expeditions in a row (1594, 1595, 1596-97). V. Barents played a key role in them, although he did not officially lead them. However, the Dutch could not advance further than Novaya Zemlya (where the first polar wintering known in history took place in 1596-97), and navigation in this direction was stopped. In search of the Northwest Way, the Englishmen M. Frobisher, J. Davies, G. Hudson, R. Bylot, W. Buffin, L. Fox and others from the 1570s to the early 1630s discovered in the polar part of North America many islands, straits, bays, including Hudson Bay (1610). However, they failed to find either a passage to the Pacific Ocean or special riches. In the 1630s and 1640s, navigators came to the conclusion that the Northwest Passage, if it existed, was of no commercial importance. In general, the search for the Northeast and Northwest Passages, although not successful (they were discovered only in the 19th-20th centuries), contributed to the accumulation of knowledge about northern seas and lands; rich areas of fishing and whaling were discovered. The English pirate F. Drake made his contribution to the Great geographical discoveries: having completed the second round-the-world voyage after Magellan in 1577-80, he discovered the strait separating Antarctica from Tierra del Fuego, and a section of the Pacific coast of North America.

The Spaniards in the 2nd half of the 16th - early 17th century organized three voyages from Peru across the Pacific Ocean in search of the biblical country of Ophir, as well as the Unknown Southern Land (which, as it was then believed, occupies vast spaces in the hard-to-reach southern latitudes). In 1568 A. Mendaña de Neira discovered Solomon islands, but he erroneously determined their longitude, and therefore tried in vain to find them in 1595. During the expedition of 1605-07, which was also looking for them, led by P. Fernandez de Quiros, the New Hebrides archipelago was discovered, and L. Vaes de Torres, who commanded two ships, for the first time passed through the strait between New Guinea and Australia, mistaking the latter for the northeastern ledge Unknown Southern Land. The discovery of Torres was classified and became known only in the 18th century. An important discovery was made by members of the expedition of M. Lopez de Legazpi, which marked the beginning of the colonization of the Philippines: in 1565, when returning to Mexico, A. de Urdaneta found that about 40 ° north latitude, in contrast to southern latitudes, winds and currents favor the crossing of the Pacific Ocean in east direction. Thanks to this, regular communications between Asia and America became possible.

At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Dutch ousted the Portuguese from Indonesia. In the voyage of 1605-06, the Dutchman V. Janszon was the first to reach the shores of Australia, mistaking it for an island New Guinea. In search of convenient routes from southern Africa to the island of Java, H. Brouwer in 1611 discovered the best route that ran south of the previous one. Using it, the Dutch from time to time reached the western coast of Australia and in 1616-36 discovered a significant part of it. In 1642-43, the Dutchman A. Tasman circled Australia without approaching its shores, established that it was not part of the Unknown Southern Land, and discovered the island, later named after him. During the voyage, the South and North Islands (New Zealand) were also discovered. In a voyage of 1644, Tasman traced an unbroken line of the northern coast of Australia for 5,500 km, proving the existence of a new continent. But these lands did not interest the Dutch, and further searches were abandoned.

Simultaneously with the sea expeditions of the countries of Western Europe, Russian explorers penetrated Siberia at the end of the 16th century, crossed all of North Asia in the first half of the 17th century and reached the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, tracing the course of all the great Siberian rivers, and Russian sailors bypassed the entire northern coast of Asia. In 1648, the expedition of F. Popov - S. Dezhnev for the first time passed from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean through the Bering Strait. It was proved that Asia does not connect with America anywhere, but this discovery did not receive wide popularity and was later again made by V. Bering.

Significance of the Great Geographical Discoveries. As a result of the Great geographical discoveries, the Europeans' understanding of the world has significantly expanded. Europeans discovered for themselves two parts of the world, America and Australia, as well as the Pacific Ocean, basically determined the contours of all inhabited continents. As a result of the first world travel it was proved in practice that the Earth has the shape of a ball, it was established that all the continents are washed by a single World Ocean, many of its currents were discovered. It became obvious that, contrary to the opinion of ancient scientists, there is much more water on the earth's surface than land. At the same time, many inland areas of America, Africa and Australia, as well as the depths of the World Ocean, remained unexplored.

The great geographical discoveries provided extensive new material for the natural sciences, ethnography, and history. Knowing the life of societies with different religions and customs, Europeans were convinced of the diversity of the world. Reflections on the golden age and the uncorrupted faith of the inhabitants of America echoed the ideas of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and social utopia. At the same time, acquiring the experience of communicating with overseas residents, Europeans were more clearly aware of their cultural and historical identity. The information received about distant countries enriched European literature and art.

The great geographical discoveries had a profound impact on the socio-economic processes in Europe, contributed to the initial accumulation of capital. The colonies served as sources of raw materials and markets for European goods. With the movement of the main trade routes from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, some regions fell into decline (Italy, Southern Germany), while others, on the contrary, grew noticeably stronger (Spain and Portugal, later England and Holland). The large-scale importation of American precious metals doubled the amount of gold in circulation in Europe and tripled the amount of silver in circulation, contributed to the rapid rise in prices for essentials throughout Europe, ruining some sections of the population and enriching others (see Price Revolution). The expansion of trade links, first between Europe and other parts of the world, then between America, Asia and Africa, led to the formation of a world market. An important part of international relations was the rivalry for control over trade routes, the desire of the rising powers to acquire their own colonies, the struggle for their redistribution. Thanks to the wealth of the colonies, the mother countries strengthened their positions in Europe. At the same time, the rate of economic development depended on the method of using the imported wealth. As a result, England and Holland began to move forward, while Spain and Portugal fell behind. However, the Great Geographical Discoveries also had a negative meaning for Europeans: mass emigration to the colonies led to an outflow of productive forces from Spain and Portugal. Europeans got acquainted with new agricultural crops (potatoes, corn, tomatoes, tea, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, cotton), which markedly changed their diet. Especially great was the importance of the potato, which, partly replacing bread for the poor, significantly reduced the threat of famine in modern Europe.

The colonial system that arose during the Great geographical discoveries as a whole united the world, at the same time dividing it into two main groups of countries: on the one hand, the metropolises that grew rich quickly, on the other, the colonies, the impact on which European expansion was rather destructive. The influence of the Great geographical discoveries and colonial conquests on the fate of the peoples of Asia, Africa and America was not the same. In Asia, until the 18th century, Europeans established their control only over strategically important points, but their influence gradually went far beyond these territories. The trade monopoly regime established by the Portuguese was based on inciting and maintaining political and religious contradictions, which influenced the situation in Western and South Asia as a whole. The most devastating was the impact of European expansion on Africa, where the slave trade devastated entire areas, increasingly influencing the historical path of the continent's development. In Latin America, the cruelty of the conquistadors and the diseases introduced by Europeans initially led to a marked reduction in the local population. Subsequently, a more reasonable policy led to the emergence of a Latin American society and culture that absorbed both European and Indian features, but processed them into a new whole.

The great geographical discoveries contributed to noticeable changes in the geography of religions. Christianity, as a result of the grandiose activities of European missionaries, spread widely in Asia, Africa, and especially in America. Where the Spaniards and the Portuguese preached, Catholicism was established, where the British and the Dutch were various reformist movements, mainly of the Calvinist persuasion.

Lit .: Peschel O. History of the Age of Discovery. 2nd ed. M., 1884; Atlas of the history of geographical discoveries and research. M., 1959; Hart G. Sea Route to India. M., 1959; Svet Ya. M. History of discovery and exploration of Australia and Oceania. M., 1966; Bakless J. America through the eyes of the discoverers. M., 1969; First images of America: The impact of the New World on the Old / Ed. F. Chiappelli. Berk. a. o., 1976. Vol. 1-2; Chaunu R. European expansion in the later Middle Ages. amst. a. o., 1979; Sanz C. Descubrimientos geograficos. Madrid, 1979; Godinho V. M. Os descobrimentose a economia mundial. Lisboa, 1981-1983. Vol. 1-4; Magidovich IP, Magidovich VI Essays on the history of geographical discoveries. M., 1982-1983. T. 1-2; Albuquerque L. de. Navegadores, viajantes e aventureiros portugueses: séculos XV e XVI. Lisboa, 1987. Vol. 1-2; Gil J. Mitos at utopias del descubrimiento. Madrid, 1989. Vol. 1-3; Cortesdo J. Os descobrimentos portugueses. Lisbon, 1990; Three caravels on the horizon. M., 1991; Découvertes et explorateurs: Actes du colloque international, Bordeaux 12-14 juin 1992. R.; Bordeaux, 1994; Implicit understandings: observing, reporting and reflecting on the encounters between Europeans, and other peoples in the early modern era / Ed. S. W. Schwartz. Camb., 1994; El Tratado de Tordesillas su época. Valladolid, 1995; Pagden A. Lords of all the world: Ideologies of empire in Spain, Britain and France. L., 1995; La época de los descubrimientos y las conquistas, 1400-1570 / Ed. J. Perez. Madrid, 1998; Martinez Shaw C., Alfonso Mola M. Europa y los nuevos mundos: siglos XV-XVIII. Madrid, 1999; Parry J H. The age of reconnaissance: discovery, exploration and settlement, 1450-1650. L., 2000; Randles W.G.L. Geography, cartography and nautical science in the Renaissance: the impact of the great discoveries. Aldershot, 2000; Voyages and exploration in the North Atlantic from the Middle Ages to the XVIIth century. Reykjavik, 2001; Kofman A.F. America of Unfulfilled Miracles. M., 2001; Ramsey R. Discoveries that never happened. St. Petersburg, 2002; Soler I. El nudo y la esfera: el navegante como artifice del mundo moderno. Barcelona, ​​2003.

Mankind gradually mastered the surface of the globe. This cost him great sacrifices, but neither the harsh nature, nor the warlike tribes, nor the diseases could no longer reverse this process.

Great Silk Road

Until the II century BC. the path from Europe to Asia ended at the spurs of the Tien Shan, which hid the civilization of China. Everything changed with the visit of the Chinese Ambassador Zhang Qian to Central Asia, who was amazed at the unprecedented wealth of these lands in his country.

Gradually, small segments of trade roads were united into a gigantic highway 12,000 kilometers long, linking East and West. However, the Great Silk Road should not be considered as a single route.

When approaching Dunhua, a city on the outskirts of the Great Wall of China, the path forked, bordering the Taklamakan desert from the north and south. The northern road went to the valley of the Ili River, and the southern one led to Bactria (northern Afghanistan). Here the Southern Road again diverged into two directions: one went to India, the other to the West - to Iraq and Syria.

The Great Silk Road is not a journey of people, but of goods that, before reaching the buyer, passed through many hands. Silk, due to its lightness, high cost and huge demand, was an ideal commodity for transportation over long distances. At the end point of the Silk Road - Rome - the price of this fabric was three times higher than the cost of gold.

Empires appeared and disappeared, establishing their control over the transit of rich caravans, but the arteries of the Great Silk Road continued to feed the markets of the largest continent.

In the middle of the 14th century, along with goods, death flowed along the Great Silk Road. An epidemic of bubonic plague from the depths of the Gobi, covering the road with corpses, reached Europe by caravan routes.

The Cambridge Encyclopedia sums up a terrible result: about 60 million people, or 25% of the world's population - such is the number of victims of a deadly epidemic, such is the price of trade relations between Europe and Asia.

Greenland

The most remarkable thing in this story is that the largest island on the planet was discovered by a fugitive criminal - Eirik, nicknamed Red. The Norwegian Viking was tired of the Icelandic exile and in 982 he sailed with his fellow tribesmen to the west. Eirik called the discovered land Greenland (“Green Country”), not at all from the riot of vegetation: he believed that if the island had good name, then people will be drawn there.

Eirik managed to persuade some of the Icelanders to move to " green country". In 985, a flotilla of 25 ships set off for the coast of Greenland. Entire families sailed, with belongings, utensils and even cattle.

It was the triumph of Red Eirik: from a hunted outcast, he turned into the owner of vast possessions.

The first settlers of Greenland found abandoned dwellings on its east coast. Most likely, they belonged to the indigenous population of the island - the ancestors of the modern Inuit, who, for unknown reasons, left their habitats.

The arrangement of life was not easy for the Vikings. In order to have the necessary minimum, they had to enter into trade relations with Europe: bread and building materials were delivered from the continent to the colonists, and whalebone and skins of marine animals were sent in return.

However, by the end of the 14th century, the colonies fell into decay - almost all of their population died out. Perhaps the reason for this was the Little Ice Age, which created unbearable conditions for life on the island.

Greenland eventually became a springboard for the further advance of the Vikings to the west. Already after the death of Eirik the Red, his sons dared to sail to the ends of the Earth and reached the shores of America.

The last written record of the Greenland Vikings dates back to 1408. It tells about a wedding in the Hwalsi church. The ruins of this church have survived to this day as a monument to the dedication of the first European conquerors of the impregnable North.

West coast of Africa

From the beginning of the 15th century, Portuguese navigators intensified their exploration of the western coast of Africa. In the midst of the Reconquista, the kings of Portugal needed new sources of fame and fortune.

But there was another reason - Turkish dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean, which blocked the traditional merchant routes to Asia.

To understand the complexity and significance of the expeditions undertaken by the Portuguese along the West African coast, it should be remembered that not a single European had crossed the equator by that time.

Moreover, Europe continued to live with the ideas of Ptolemaic geography, according to which the inhabited world ended in an ocean washing the western outskirts of Africa. In 1482, Diogo Can overcame the equator and reached the mouth of the Congo River, refuting Ptolemy's hypothesis about the impassability of the tropics along the way.

On the coast of the Gulf of Guinea, Portuguese sailors found what they set off on such a long journey for - large deposits of gold. The news of the found gold spread quickly and already Spanish, British, Dutch businessmen are sailing here to organize mines in the hope of making fabulous profits.

In 1442 black men and women were brought to Lisbon. This was the delivery of the first batch of African slaves. From now on, “black gold” is becoming the most popular commodity, first on the European and later on the American market.

At the same time, a new phenomenon for mankind arises in the Cape Verde Islands (Cape Verde) - a mixture of Europeans and Africans. This is how Creoles appeared. According to historians, this is due to a banal reason - the almost complete absence of white women in the Portuguese colonies.

America

Instead of answering many questions, the discovery of America seems to have puzzled Europeans even more: the inhabited world here did not end, but continued further west into the frightening unknown. Nevertheless, the pioneers too self-confidently began to master the alien environment, irrevocably violating the natural and cultural balance of both continents.

Thanks to the "Columbian Exchange" (Alfred Crosby's term), animals, crops, technologies and diseases migrated to the west in a much larger volume, radically changing the face of the New World. One of the diseases - malaria - was destined to affect the geopolitical map of North America.

Malaria was brought to the New World along with African slaves, but since the latter had immunity to infection, it was mainly Europeans who died from the disease. The distribution zone of disease carriers - malarial mosquitoes - is humid tropics. She eventually formed a conditional geographic line above which mosquitoes did not breed.

To the south of this line were the slave-owning states, and to the north the territories free from slaves, where European settlers mainly went. Today, this line almost coincides with the so-called Mason-Dixon line, which separates the state of Pennsylvania from the states of West Virginia and Maryland located to the south.

The development of the vast territories of the New World allowed Europe to cope with the problem of overpopulation that threatened it in the future. However, the expansion of Europeans on both American continents led to the largest humanitarian and demographic catastrophe in the history of mankind.

The Indian Reservation Removal Act, which appeared in the United States in 1867, was only a formal step towards the preservation of the natives. Indians were often sent to places completely unsuitable for farming. A number of Indian organizations claim that from 1500 to 1900 the indigenous population of America decreased from 15 million to 237 thousand people.

Antarctica

Antarctica, like an alluring and at the same time repulsive forbidden fruit, slowly and gradually let sailors close to it. Dirk Geeritz reaches 64°S in 1559. latitude, James Cook in 1773 - 67 ° 5′ S. sh. Trapped among icebergs near Tierra del Fuego, the English navigator declares that there is no Southern Continent.

For almost half a century, Cook's skepticism discouraged the search for a sixth continent. But in 1820, Bellingshausen and Lazarev managed to reach 69°21′ S. sh. - now such a treasured land is at a distance of a cannon shot. Only the Norwegian expedition of Carsten Borchgrevink in 1895 made the first recorded landing on the Southern Continent.

According to the "Treaty on Antarctica", signed in 1959, only 7 states declare claims to certain sectors of the continent - Great Britain, Norway, France, Chile, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand. But everyone's territorial appetites are different.

If France claims a narrow strip of land - Adélie Land, which occupies 432,000 km², then Australia counts on almost half the area of ​​​​Antarctica. At the same time, Chile, New Zealand, Great Britain and Argentina dispute almost the same territory.

Each of the countries is trying to look into the future of the southern mainland. The British, for example, seriously intend to develop the Antarctic shelf rich in hydrocarbons. It is possible that Antarctica may be populated in the near future. Already today, due to global warming, tundra is beginning to form on the most distant parts of the land from the pole, and in 100 years, scientists predict the appearance of trees here.