{"id":892,"date":"2015-02-06T12:41:09","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T12:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/?p=892"},"modified":"2024-11-05T14:33:22","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T14:33:22","slug":"dates-that-changed-the-western-world-1492-and-the-age-of-discovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/2015\/02\/06\/dates-that-changed-the-western-world-1492-and-the-age-of-discovery\/","title":{"rendered":"Dates That Changed The Western World: 1492 and &#8216;The Age of Discovery&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-893\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/446\/2018\/05\/columbus1.jpg\" alt=\"columbus1\" width=\"196\" height=\"264\" \/>In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue<\/em>. So goes the rhyme that many schoolchildren still learn in order to remember the date\u00a0which has come to be thought of as the moment Europe &#8216;discovered&#8217; North America. In truth, this\u00a0is a lesson in how\u00a0picking out single years as &#8216;turning points&#8217; is a little false: the Vikings had reached Newfoundland as early as\u00a01000AD, for instance, and Columbus only made it to Hispaniola, all of which makes\u00a01492 a rather less auspicious year for North America that the nursery rhyme suggests.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, 1492 represents a defining moment for a process of exploration and exploitation which had been gaining ground throughout the latter half of the fifteenth century. In August of that year, Columbus, a Genoan, sailed with three ships funded by the King of Portugal to find what all involved hoped would be a shorter, easier navigation\u00a0to the rich trading routes of Asia. In the event, there was another continent in the way &#8211; and it was one which itself would soon be subject to many more state-funded European visits in a process which rapidly developed into what we now call\u00a0colonialism. This had all sorts of consequences for the indigenous peoples, for geopolitical relations between states, and, ultimately, for the phenomenon that would come to be known as &#8216;imperialism&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>So by all means remember 1492 &#8230;\u00a0but perhaps not so much for the &#8216;discovery&#8217; as for the method, means and motives behind it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. So goes the rhyme that many schoolchildren still learn in order to remember the date\u00a0which has come to be thought of as the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[778,383],"class_list":["post-892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-dates-that-changed-the-western-world","tag-early-modern-2"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=892"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3542,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892\/revisions\/3542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}