World History · Semester B TEKS 1D-14C
Medium
The AGE OF EUROPEAN EXPLORATION (roughly 15th–17th centuries CE) was enabled by which combination of factors?
ABest treated as an artifact of 19th-century nationalist historiography rather than as a distinctive historical development, with most substantive claims about it lacking primary-source support.
BRepresents a category confusion in most standard accounts, mixing distinct developments that occurred in different periods, regions, and cultural contexts under a single misleading label.
CChronologically misplaced in most popular accounts, occurring substantially earlier or later than commonly claimed, and involving different actors from those usually named.
DImprovements in ship design (caravel), navigation instruments (astrolabe, magnetic compass), cartography, and the search for direct maritime access to Asian spices and trade — bypassing overland.
Explanation
The Age of European Exploration was enabled by a bundle of factors: technical (the caravel, astrolabe, magnetic compass, expanding cartographic knowledge), economic (search for direct maritime access to Asian spices and trade, bypassing overland routes controlled by the Ottoman Empire and others), political (competition between Portugal, Spain, and later Netherlands, England, France), and religious (missionary motivations). Portugal's coastal-Africa exploration in the 15th century led directly into Bartolomeu Dias reaching the Cape of Good Hope (1488) and Vasco da Gama reaching India (1498).
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