Sekai powell

The era known as the Age of Exploration, sometimes called the Age of Discovery, officially began in the early 15th century and lasted through the 17th century. The period is characterized as a time when Europeans began exploring the world by sea in search of new trading routes, wealth, and knowledge. The impact of the Age of Exploration would permanently alter the world and transform geography into the modern science it is today. (thoughtco.com)

The term Italian Renaissance has not gone unchallenged; its meaning and boundaries have aroused much controversy. From the 1340s the idea of “rebirth” was a commonplace in critical writing. Authors spoke of how, with Dante and Giotto, both poetry and painting had been “reborn,” and in the following two centuries the same notion was often applied to other areas such as architecture, sculpture, and philosophy. (britannica.com)

Having convinced the King and Queen of Spain to finance his voyage, Christopher Columbus departed mainland Spain on August 3, 1492. He quickly made port in the Canary Islands for a final restocking and left there on September 6. He was in command of three ships: the Pinta, the Niña, and the Santa María. Although Columbus was in overall command, the Pinta was captained by Martín Alonso Pinzón and the Niña by Vicente Yañez Pinzón.

Counter-Reformation, also called Catholic Reformation or Catholic Revival, in the history of Christianity, the Roman Catholic efforts directed in the 16th and early 17th centuries both against the Protestant Reformation and toward internal renewal. (britannica.com)

In 1549, Francis Xavier, a Jesuit priest, arrived in Japan. His stamina, zeal and willingness to suffer resulted in thousands of conversion in just two short years. Unfortunately, the Church soon adopted some extreme methods to advance itself, including the introduction of Buddhist and Shinto religious elements into Christian worship and using feudal lords to coerce their subjects to convert. The shoguns were also eventually persuaded that Christianity was an attempt to soften them up for European conquest. Added to that, quarrels among rival missionary groups aggravated the situations and as a result, as many as 280,000 Japanese Christians were persecuted and thousands were martyred. (grantmijo.com)

japans isolation kept it closed off from much of the world, one upshot was the rise of cultural touchstones that persist to this day. (Though admittedly, this knowledge would likely have done little to console the lower classes, who lived difficult lives.) (butterfield.com)

a pattern of colonial commerce in which slaves were bought on the African Gold Coast with New England rum and then traded in the West Indies for sugar or molasses, which was brought back to New England to be manufactured into rum. (dictionary.com)