Explorers

“In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. . . . “ However, the age of exploration and the showdown to colonize the Americas was not limited to one man. Discover why explorers came to the New World, how they traveled to their destinations, and the effects upon the future colonization of the Western Hemisphere. Learn amazing facts about the age of exploration at the Times Launch Point Web site: https://www.latimes.com/launchpoint/

Level 1

Explorers of the Millennium: Ferdinand Magellan was the first to sail around the world. Learn about 21 explorers and test your knowledge with an online quiz.

https://tqjunior.advanced.org/4034/

Latitude: The Art and Science of 15th Century Navigation: Sailors were once so superstitious that black cats and women were not allowed on ships because they were thought to bring bad sailing conditions. Learn how sailors navigated by looking at ocean currents, weather, constellations and understanding the basics of Earth’s magnetism.

https://www.ruf.rice.edu/~feegi/

Explorers of the World: Many cultures such as the ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians and Polynesians explored new regions as they searched for new trade routes. View ancient maps, pictures of the ships they sailed and a timeline that spans hundreds of years of discovery.

https://www.mariner.org./age/menu.html

Level 2

The Floridians: Conquistadors: When Ponce de Leon first landed on what is now called Florida in 1513, he disproved the belief of explorers that Florida was just one big island. Learn how these Spanish conquistadors were driven by gold, glory and religious belief in their quests in the southeastern United States.

https://www.floridahistory.org/floridians/conquis.htm

The Columbus Navigation Homepage: Where did Columbus first see what was to him the New World? Read the evidence from the voyage log, view maps, read various theories and then make your guess. You can then check your guess using the scoreboard.

https://www1.minn.net/~keithp/index.htm

Cortes meets Moctezuma: Emperor Moctezuma first thought the explorer Cortes was the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl returning. This site tells of Cortes’ arrival in Mexico and gives background of both Cortes and Moctezuma.

https://www.umich.edu/~proflame/texts/mirror/conflict.html

Level 3

The European Voyages of Exploration: The 15th and 16th Centuries: What are degredados and how did they hasten communication between the explorers and the native populations? What Middle Eastern empire greatly influenced Europe’s need to maintain maritime superiority? Learn the answers to these questions and more in this site that goes beyond European exploration, from the quest for the Americas to the Ming Dynasty in China.

https://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/HIST/tutor/eurvoya/index.html

The Early Modern World System: Read the actual words of the explorers ranging from “The Discovery of North America by Leif Ericsson” to Amerigo Vespucci’s “Account of His First Voyage” in 1497 to a 1557 account by a Turkish admiral of his travels to India and the Middle East.

https://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook03.html#The Early Modern World System

1492: An Ongoing Voyage: This exhibit at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., explores Christopher Columbus’ voyages and their effects, positive and negative, on the continued colonization of the Americas. This site, filled with maps and photos, gives both full text and an easy-to-follow outline of the exhibit.

https://www.metalab.unc.edu/expo/1492.exhibit/Intro.html

EXPLORER’S QUEST

The answer to this Internet quiz can be found in the sites at right.

What treaty, signed by Spain and Portugal in 1494, divided the world in two?

CLUE: See Explorers of the World

Find What You Need to Know: Have a project on California history? Need help doing a math problem? Launch Point now covers more than 100 topics for getting your schoolwork done. Go to https://www.latimes.com/launchpoint/ for the full list of subjects and direct links to the best Internet sites.

Answer to last week’s Quest: You could earn $10 million if you chose to be paid a penny the first day and have your salary doubled every day for a month.

Launch Point is produced by the UC Irvine department of education, which reviews each site for appropriateness and quality. Even so, parents should supervise their children’s use of the Internet. This week’s column was designed by Laura Busch, Elena Kobulnicky, Rebecca Wei and Anna Manring.