matictrio.blogg.se

This system fueled the European renaissance but abruptly collapsed in the fourteenth century following the breakup of the Mongol Empire. These goods crossed central Asia via caravan, were transferred to ships in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople (modern day Istanbul), and were sent to various European ports like Venice or Columbus’s birth place, Genoa. Under Mongol control the Silk Road became Europe’s most important source of resources particularly luxury good like Chinese silks and Indian spices. The Empire’s strong territorial control and stable government created the ideal conditions for trans-Asia trade routes, most notably the Silk Road. At its height the Mongol Empire controlled a vast expanse of territories that stretched from the Korean Peninsula in the east to Central Europe in the west and from Siberia in the north to India in the south. The Mongol Empire was the largest nation state in human history. These world changing events would not have happened without Columbus, who would never have “discovered” America had it not been for the collapse of the Mongol Empire half a world away. Cocoa for Swiss chocolates and tomatoes for Italian tomato sauce were unknown to Europeans until explorers brought them back from the Americas. Additionally the essential ingredients of some of Europe’s most classic products were introduced by Columbus. Currently the indigenous population of the Americas is less than ten percent of what it was before Columbus arrived. In the decades following Columbus’s arrival the population of indigenous people dropped by over fifty percent. The interactions that occurred between early explorers like Columbus and the New World’s indigenous peoples irrevocably transformed global demographics and ecology.

Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the lands that are now called the Americas forever altered the course of history. In honor of this week’s rather controversial holiday, Columbus Day, I thought I would examine the reasons why Columbus made his historic voyage to the New World.