Explorers, Printers and Reformers

Imagine buying a tiny bag of pepper for a high price. In the 1400s, rich Europeans paid dearly for Asian spices. These goods helped send ships across oceans.

Follow the spice trail

Pepper grew in India, and cinnamon grew in Sri Lanka. Cloves and nutmeg came from the Spice Islands, now Indonesia's Maluku Islands. Spices flavored food and were used in medicines. Silk and fine porcelain came from China.

These goods reached Europe along the Silk Roads. This was a web of land and sea routes. Goods passed through many hands before reaching buyers. Each trader added to the price. Venice and Genoa controlled much of the trade within Europe.

Follow a shipment of pepper. A trader buys it near where it grows. Other traders carry it across seas and land. Each needs payment for transport and profit. By the time it reaches Italy, it costs much more. A merchant who could buy directly in India hoped to earn more.

Why pay for a risky voyage?

In 1453, the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople, now Istanbul. Their empire controlled and taxed important routes between Europe and Asia. Europeans wanted sea routes they could control themselves. Portuguese exploration had already begun before 1453; several causes worked together.

The phrase “God, gold and glory” helps you remember three motives. “God” meant spreading Christianity. “Gold” meant wealth from trade, land and precious metals. “Glory” meant fame and power. One voyage could serve several motives.

A sponsor paid for ships, crews and supplies. Prince Henry of Portugal supported voyages along Africa's coast. Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain paid for Columbus's 1492 voyage. Sponsors expected wealth and claims to land in return.

Sailors already knew a great deal

Educated Europeans knew Earth was round. Arguments concerned its size and the distance to Asia. Sailors feared storms, sickness and empty water barrels. They were not trying to avoid falling off an edge.

Other peoples had made long voyages before these journeys. Zheng He led seven Chinese expeditions between 1405 and 1433. His fleets reached East Africa. Polynesian navigators read stars, waves and birds to cross the Pacific. They reached Aotearoa New Zealand by about 1300. The later European voyages built lasting links among four continents.

Out at sea, a sailor needs direction and a position. Different tools answer different questions. A compass alone cannot tell you where your ship is.

Make a ship work with the wind

A caravel was a small, light Portuguese sailing ship. Its shallow hull could enter rivers and coastal waters. Triangular lateen sails let it travel at an angle into the wind. Square sails worked well with wind from behind. Columbus's Niña and Pinta were caravels. The heavier Santa María was a carrack.

Find direction and latitude

A compass has a magnetized needle that points north. Invented in China, it reached European sailors by about 1200. It helped them keep a direction under cloudy skies.

An astrolabe measured the height of the midday Sun or North Star. A quadrant did a similar job. With this angle, sailors could find their latitude: how far north or south they were. Latitude is measured in degrees. In the Northern Hemisphere, a North Star height near 40 degrees means roughly 40 degrees north latitude.

Longitude tells how far east or west you are. Sailors then had no reliable way to measure it at sea. Accurate sea clocks helped solve that problem in the 1700s.

Estimate a position

With dead reckoning, a pilot used speed, direction and time. One knot means one nautical mile per hour. Suppose a ship travels west at 5 knots for 24 hours:

The pilot marks an estimated position 120 nautical miles west. Currents and changing winds could make that mark wrong. Small errors grew over long journeys. By the late 1500s, sailors measured speed with a knotted rope and sand glass. Earlier pilots judged objects drifting past their ships.

Improve charts and survive the journey

A cartographer makes maps. Reports from returning crews helped mapmakers add coastlines and harbors. Some earlier European maps mixed known coasts with guesses. Waldseemüller's 1507 map used the name “America.” Mercator's 1569 map let sailors plot a steady compass course as a straight line.

Crews included pilots, carpenters, cooks, sailors and young ship's boys. Food included hardtack biscuits, salted meat and dried beans. Water in barrels could spoil. Without enough vitamin C from fresh foods, sailors could develop scurvy, a dangerous illness. Storms, crowded quarters and shipwrecks added to the risks.

Find Portugal on Europe's Atlantic coast. From there, follow Africa southward with your finger. Portuguese sailors gradually built a sea route toward India.

Travel farther along Africa

From the early 1400s, Prince Henry sponsored Portuguese voyages. Crews explored a little farther along Africa's west coast. Trading posts and forts supported trade in gold and ivory. From the 1440s, Portuguese traders also took captured African people to Portugal.

In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias sailed around Africa's southern tip. He called it the Cape of Storms. Portugal's king renamed it the Cape of Good Hope. The new name showed hope of reaching India by sea.

Dias had rounded the cape, but had not reached India. Keep his achievement separate from the next part of the route.

Continue to India

Vasco da Gama left Lisbon in 1497. His ships rounded the cape and followed Africa's eastern coast. At Malindi, in present-day Kenya, a local pilot joined them. The pilot knew the Indian Ocean winds. Da Gama reached Calicut in India in May 1498.

Trace the route in stages:

1. Leave Portugal and sail south along western Africa.
2. Round Africa's southern tip into the Indian Ocean.
3. Sail north along eastern Africa to Malindi.
4. Cross the Indian Ocean toward India.

On a timeline, Dias belongs at 1488 and da Gama's arrival at 1498. The gap is ten years. Columbus's first Atlantic voyage, in 1492, falls between them. Different routes were being explored during the same years.

Enter an ocean full of traders

India was already known, and millions of people lived there. Arab, Indian, Persian, East African, Malay and Chinese merchants had traded across these seas for centuries. Da Gama opened a sea route from Europe around Africa. He did not discover an empty trading world.

The Portuguese wanted control of valuable spice traffic. They often used cannon-armed ships and force against other traders. They seized Goa in India in 1510 and Malacca in 1511. A new route could bring wealth to its sponsors while bringing violence to others.

Portugal's progress around Africa also helped shape Spain's plans. Spain backed Columbus's attempt to reach Asia by sailing west across the Atlantic.

Columbus sailed west hoping to reach Asia. The lands he reached were home to peoples he had not expected. His mistake about geography helped shape the names he used.

Cross the Atlantic

Christopher Columbus came from Genoa in Italy. He thought Earth was smaller than it is. This made his planned westward route to Asia seem shorter. Portuguese rulers rejected his plan, but Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain sponsored it.

On August 3, 1492, the Niña, Pinta and Santa María left Spain with about 90 men. After stopping in the Canary Islands, the ships crossed the Atlantic. On October 12, 1492, they reached Guanahaní in the Bahamas. Taíno people already lived there. Columbus called the island San Salvador and claimed it for Spain.

He also visited Cuba and Hispaniola. Hispaniola is now shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The Santa María ran aground there at Christmas and was wrecked.

Four voyages and a wrong idea

Columbus made four voyages, beginning in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502. He explored Caribbean islands and mainland coasts in Central and South America. He still claimed these places belonged to Asia when he died in 1506. Europeans called parts of Asia “the Indies.” His mistaken belief explains his name “Indians” for the people he met.

Columbus forced Taíno people on Hispaniola to bring gold. His rule caused great suffering, and he also mistreated Spanish settlers. In 1500 he was arrested and returned to Spain in chains. His sailing skill and his harsh rule are both parts of his story.

Change the map

Amerigo Vespucci explored South America's coast around 1499–1502. He described a continent separate from Asia, a “New World” to Europeans. Waldseemüller's 1507 map used “America” in his honor.

Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. They drew a line dividing claims to lands overseas. The peoples living there had not agreed to this division. In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral reached Brazil on Portugal's side. In 1513, Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed Panama and saw the Pacific from the Americas.

People had lived in the Americas for more than 15,000 years. Norse sailors led by Leif Erikson reached Newfoundland around 1000. Columbus's voyages began lasting contact between Europe and the Americas; they were not the first human arrival.

A journey around Earth needed more than one leader. Other sailors searched for shorter routes through the north. Both stories show how difficult ocean travel could be.

Follow the voyage around Earth

In September 1519, Ferdinand Magellan left Spain with five ships and about 270 men. He wanted a westward route to the Spice Islands. In 1520 he found a narrow passage near South America's southern tip. It is now called the Strait of Magellan.

Beyond it lay the ocean he named Pacific, meaning “peaceful.” Its calm appearance hid its enormous size. The crossing took more than three months. Crews ran short of food, and many died of hunger and scurvy.

In 1521, Magellan was killed fighting Lapulapu's people at Mactan in the Philippines. Juan Sebastián Elcano later commanded the Victoria on the final journey home. It crossed the Indian Ocean and rounded Africa. In September 1522, it reached Spain with 18 men aboard.

About 270 men began the expedition; 18 returned on that ship. That is about one in fifteen. Some others returned in different ways. Elcano and the Victoria's crew completed the first voyage around the world. Magellan led the expedition's beginning, but did not finish it.

Search through the north

A route north of North America might have shortened journeys to Asia. Sailors called the hoped-for route the Northwest Passage. Ice blocked their attempts. A ship finally completed it between 1903 and 1906.

John Cabot, sailing for England, reached North America in 1497, probably Newfoundland. Jacques Cartier, sailing for France, explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1534. In 1535, he traveled up the river to Stadacona and Hochelaga. Their people's word kanata, meaning “village,” gave Canada its name.

In 1608, Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec as a French settlement. He made fur-trading alliances with peoples including the Wendat. Henry Hudson explored today's Hudson River for a Dutch company in 1609. Sailing for England in 1610, he entered Hudson Bay. In 1611, his crew set him adrift; he was never seen again.

These journeys increased European knowledge and trade in North America.

Picture ships approaching an island where families already live. The sailors see unfamiliar shores. The people ashore see unfamiliar ships. You can tell this meeting from both sides.

Meet different peoples

Indigenous peoples are the first peoples of a land. Their ancestors lived there before newcomers arrived. The Americas held millions of people in hundreds of nations. They spoke different languages and had different ways of life.

The Taíno lived in the Caribbean. The Mexica, often called Aztecs, ruled an empire in Mexico. Maya peoples lived in Central America and nearby regions. The Inca ruled in the Andes. The Wendat and Haudenosaunee were among many North American peoples. Some communities farmed; others hunted or fished. Some built great cities. Tenochtitlan may have held about 200,000 people.

Choose words that fit

Discovery means finding something new to you. Encounter means a meeting between peoples. Conquest means taking land and power by force.

Imagine a heading: “Sailors discover an island.” First, ask who found it new. It was new to those sailors. Next, ask who already lived there. Their story is missing from the heading. “Sailors reach an island and meet its people” describes the encounter. If soldiers later seize the land, “conquest” describes that action.

Listen to accounts from both sides

Columbus described Taíno gifts, including parrots and cotton thread. He also thought about making the people servants and Christians. His account shows both interest in trade and plans to rule.

No written Taíno account of this first meeting survives. You can also learn through objects, archaeology and stories passed down. Later Indigenous accounts include Nahuatl descriptions and pictures of the conquest of Mexico.

Indigenous peoples watched newcomers and made decisions. They might welcome visitors, exchange goods, seek allies or resist. People traded food, cotton and gold ornaments for tools, cloth, bells and beads. Local knowledge helped newcomers find water and grow food.

Different languages caused misunderstandings. Europeans sometimes planted flags and announced claims in words local people did not understand. A claim did not mean those people had agreed to give up their land. When reading an account, ask who made it, when, and whose experiences it describes.

How could small Spanish forces help defeat huge empires? The answer includes disease, local allies and divided rulers. Weapons were only part of the story.

Conquer the Aztec capital

Conquistadors were Spanish soldiers and adventurers seeking land, gold and fame. Hernán Cortés reached Mexico in 1519 with about 500 soldiers.

The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, stood on an island in Lake Texcoco. Causeways joined it to shore. Canals carried boats through a city of markets and temples. Nearby farmers grew crops on chinampas. These raised plots were built from mud and plants in shallow water. They did not float.

The ruler, Moctezuma II, received goods as tribute from conquered peoples. Some peoples resented Aztec rule. Thousands of Tlaxcalan warriors joined Cortés against their enemies. Malinche, also called Malintzin or Doña Marina, translated and advised Cortés. She was a Nahua woman who had been enslaved and given to the Spanish. Her language skills helped people communicate during the campaign.

Cortés entered the capital in November 1519 and took Moctezuma prisoner. In 1520, the Aztecs drove the Spanish out. Moctezuma died, and smallpox swept through the city. In 1521, Spanish forces and Indigenous allies captured it after a long siege. Spain built Mexico City on its ruins.

Attack a weakened Inca Empire

The Inca Empire stretched along the Andes. Roads covered about 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers). Officials kept records with knotted strings called quipu.

After an emperor died, probably from smallpox, his sons fought over power. Atahualpa defeated his brother Huáscar, but the war weakened the empire. In 1532, Francisco Pizarro and fewer than 200 men captured Atahualpa at Cajamarca. The Spanish took a huge gold ransom and killed him in 1533. They seized Cusco, but Inca resistance continued until 1572.

Put the causes together

First, disease killed and weakened many people. Second, Indigenous allies supplied thousands of fighters. Third, rivalries and civil war divided the empires. Spanish horses, steel weapons, armor and cannons added an advantage. Capturing rulers also disrupted leadership. Saying “a few Spaniards won because of guns” leaves out much of the fighting force and the damage disease caused.

Losing a city was only the beginning of conquest's effects. Families faced sickness, forced work and lost land. Yet Indigenous peoples resisted and kept communities and cultures alive.

Face new diseases

Smallpox, measles and influenza spread through the Americas. People had little protection against these unfamiliar illnesses. Immunity is the body's protection against a particular disease. Epidemics sometimes spread ahead of European travelers.

Disease was the biggest killer, while war, hunger and overwork added deaths. Historians estimate that Indigenous populations fell by as much as nine tenths in the century after 1492. The size of the loss varied between places. These were people with families, knowledge and skills, not just a number on a chart.

Lose work, land and power

Under Spain's encomienda system, colonists demanded Indigenous labor or goods. In return, colonists were supposed to protect people and teach Christianity. Many instead used harsh forced work. Workers were also forced into mines such as Potosí, in present-day Bolivia.

Colonies were ruled by faraway countries. A viceroy governed New Spain for Spain's king. Land was taken for farms, ranches and towns. Indigenous rulers lost power, and families lost access to places they depended on.

Missionaries spread Christianity. Conquerors destroyed temples and burned many books. Some Indigenous people kept their beliefs; others mixed traditions with Christian ones. Languages such as Nahuatl and Quechua continued to be spoken.

Protest, resist and survive

Bartolomé de las Casas had once held an encomienda. He later spoke and wrote against cruel treatment. He helped persuade Spain's king to pass the New Laws of 1542. These aimed to protect Indigenous peoples, but many colonists ignored them. Passing a law and carrying it out were different things.

Indigenous people fought, escaped and protected their traditions. The Taíno leader Hatuey resisted Spanish conquest in Cuba until 1512. Inca fighters held a mountain stronghold until 1572.

Hispaniola's Taíno suffered terrible losses from disease, hunger, war and forced work. Many Caribbean people have Taíno ancestors. Words such as “canoe,” “hammock” and “hurricane” also survive in English. Indigenous nations live across the Americas today. The story includes enormous loss and continuing life.

Some foods now seem to belong to places far from their origins. After 1492, ocean travel carried living things across the world. The effects reached farms, meals and whole societies.

Sort the directions

The Columbian Exchange was the movement of plants, animals, people and diseases between the Americas and the rest of the world. Its name comes from Columbus, whose voyages began lasting contact.

From the Americas outward went potatoes, tomatoes, maize, cacao and chili peppers. Other travelers included peanuts, pumpkins, squash, sweet potatoes, pineapples, vanilla, turkeys and tobacco.

Into the Americas came horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and chickens. Plants included wheat, rice, sugarcane, bananas, coffee, oranges and lemons. Some came from Europe, others from Africa or Asia. Crossing the Atlantic did not make every plant European in origin.

Trace a familiar food

Consider a chocolate bar. Cacao came from the Americas. Sugarcane came to the Americas from across the Atlantic. Growing the two crops in connected trading regions helped bring them together. The finished food joins ingredients with different histories.

You can do the same with a meal. Start with each main ingredient. Identify where it came from, then follow its movement. Today's cooking traditions show where foods became popular, not always where they first grew. Potatoes originated in the Andes, even though they later became common in European meals.

See unequal effects

Potatoes and maize provided more food in Europe, Africa and Asia. This helped populations grow. Horses later changed bison hunting for peoples of North America's Great Plains. Cattle and sheep also spread across land Indigenous peoples had farmed or hunted.

Smallpox, measles and influenza crossed mainly toward the Americas. Malaria and yellow fever spread there too. These diseases caused enormous loss of Indigenous lives. The demand for sugar encouraged large plantations and the use of enslaved workers.

The word “exchange” describes movement in both directions. It does not mean a fair bargain. New crops helped feed many people, while disease and conquest devastated communities.

A silver coin could cross an ocean and buy cloth from another continent. Regular sea routes linked distant workers and buyers. The profits and the work were shared very unequally.

Follow goods across the seas

Ships carried Asian spices, Chinese silk and porcelain, and Indian cotton cloth. Gold and ivory came from Africa. Silver, sugar, tobacco and furs traveled from the Americas. Fishing crews caught cod off Newfoundland.

In 1545, the Spanish began taking silver from Potosí. Indigenous workers were forced to mine it. Silver from the Americas became coins used in distant markets.

From the 1570s, Manila galleons crossed the Pacific. Follow one chain of trade:

1. Silver from American mines reaches Acapulco in Mexico.
2. A ship carries it to Manila in the Philippines.
3. Chinese merchants exchange silk and porcelain for silver.
4. Goods return across the Pacific to Mexico and can continue to Spain.

This route linked the Americas, Asia and Europe. Following the coin also takes you back to the workers who dug its metal.

Compare a trading post and a colony

A trading post was a settlement where goods were bought and sold. It often had a fort. Elmina, built by Portugal in 1482, began as a center for the gold trade. It later became a major center of the slave trade.

A colony is land ruled by another country. Settlers often move there from the ruling country. A trading post can stand inside a colony. The terms answer different questions: one describes a trading place; the other describes who rules the land.

In North America, Indigenous traders exchanged beaver furs for cloth and metal tools. European buyers wanted felt hats made from the fur. Wendat, Innu and Haudenosaunee traders were important partners. Trade also created rivalries and sometimes war.

Pool money and gain power

Merchants formed large trading companies. Investors put money into a company and shared its profits. The English East India Company began in 1600. The Dutch East India Company followed in 1602, and the Dutch West India Company in 1621.

These companies had ships, soldiers and forts. Their trade was tied to force and control of land. Merchants and rulers gained wealth, while forced workers and enslaved people suffered.

The Atlantic slave trade forced people far from their homes. They had names, families, skills and hopes. Learning this history also means learning how people resisted enslavement.

Understand enslavement

Slavery treats people as property. Enslaved people are forced to work and cannot freely leave. Slavery existed before this era, but the transatlantic trade created a huge forced movement across the ocean.

From the 1440s, Portuguese traders took captured Africans to Portugal. Enslaved workers were later forced onto sugar plantations on Atlantic islands. These developed on Madeira, and around 1500 on São Tomé. A plantation is a large farm growing a crop for sale.

In the Americas, colonists wanted workers for plantations and mines. Many Indigenous workers had died from disease and harsh treatment. Colonists chose to use enslaved Africans. In 1518, Spain's king licensed direct shipments from Africa to his American colonies. Known direct voyages followed from about 1519.

Follow the Atlantic routes

A common trading pattern linked three regions. European ships carried goods such as cloth and metal goods to Africa. Traders exchanged goods for captives, then forced them across the Atlantic. Ships carried American crops such as sugar and tobacco to Europe. This pattern is called triangular trade. Actual voyages did not all follow one complete triangle.

The crossing from Africa to the Americas was the Middle Passage. Captives endured crowded ships, too little food and water, sickness and cruelty. Many died. Across the trade's long history, about 12.5 million Africans were forced aboard ships. About 10.7 million survived the crossing. The difference is about 1.8 million lives lost at sea, roughly one person in seven. Most survivors were taken to Brazil and the Caribbean.

Learn about choices and resistance

European traders bought many captives from African rulers and traders. Captives were often taken in wars or raids. Some African rulers opposed the trade. In 1526, King Afonso I of Kongo protested to Portugal's king about people being taken from his kingdom.

Sugar work meant cutting cane and boiling its juice for long hours. Enslaved people resisted on ships and plantations. They rebelled, escaped, slowed work and kept family and cultural ties alive. Some built free communities, including Palmares in Brazil. Their cultures helped shape the Americas.

European defenders of slavery spread racist claims that Africans were worth less. These claims were false and helped excuse cruelty. The trade continued into the 1800s.

While sailors explored ocean routes, artists studied bodies, buildings and nature. A new interest in ancient learning helped change European art. This period began before Columbus's voyages.

Start in wealthy Italian cities

The Renaissance, meaning “rebirth,” lasted roughly from 1350 to 1600. It began in Italy, where people studied ancient Greek and Roman art and books. Humanists valued learning many subjects and developing human talents.

Trade and banking made Florence, Venice and Genoa wealthy. Roman ruins offered examples of ancient buildings and sculpture. Rich supporters, called patrons, paid artists and thinkers. The Medici banking family were important patrons in Florence.

Make a flat picture look deep

Artists studied bodies, plants, faces and light. Perspective helped them create depth on flat surfaces. Nearby objects appear larger; distant objects appear smaller. Lines running into the distance can meet at a vanishing point.

Imagine drawing a tiled hallway. First, draw its far end smaller. Next, aim the floor's long lines toward one point. Finally, make distant tiles smaller and closer together. Your page is still flat, but the hallway seems deep. This differs from using size mainly to show a person's importance.

Brunelleschi worked out rules for perspective in Florence. He also built its cathedral dome. In Flanders, Jan van Eyck used oil paint for glowing colors and tiny details.

Meet artists with many talents

Leonardo da Vinci, who lived from 1452 to 1519, painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. His notebooks explored bodies, birds, water and machines. Many notes used mirror writing, running right to left. Most of his machine designs were never built during his lifetime.

Michelangelo, who lived from 1475 to 1564, was a sculptor, painter and architect. He completed the marble statue David in 1504. Between 1508 and 1512, he painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling in Rome. He stood on scaffolding and bent backward to paint overhead. Later, he designed St. Peter's great dome.

Curiosity also changed science. In 1543, Copernicus published his argument that Earth moves around the Sun. Many people took years to accept this idea. Printing helped ideas travel, while artists' close observation encouraged fresh questions about how the world works.

Imagine copying every page of a book by hand. A single large book could take months. Printing made it possible to produce many copies from the same prepared page.

Begin with earlier Asian printing

Printing existed in Asia long before Gutenberg. Chinese printers carved whole pages into woodblocks. The Diamond Sutra, dated 868, is the oldest surviving printed book with a date.

In the 1040s, Bi Sheng made movable characters from baked clay in China. These separate pieces could be arranged and reused. In Korea, printers used movable metal type. The oldest surviving book printed that way is Jikji, from 1377.

Build and reuse a page

Around 1440–1450, Johannes Gutenberg developed a printing system in Mainz, Germany. It combined movable metal letters, oily ink and a press.

Follow the work of a printer:

1. Cast separate metal letters in molds.
2. Arrange letters into rows within a page frame.
3. Spread ink over the raised letters.
4. Lay paper on the type and press firmly.
5. Replace the paper to make another copy.
6. Rearrange the letters for a new page.

The printer sets a page once and prints it many times. A scribe must copy the words again for each new book. Reusable letters also save the work of carving every new page into wood.

Gutenberg's famous Latin Bible appeared around 1455, with about 180 copies. Printing a book still required skill and work. But producing many copies became faster and cheaper than copying each by hand.

Spread ideas—and check them

By 1500, presses worked in more than 200 European towns and had printed millions of books. William Caxton set up England's first printing press in 1476. Cheaper books reached more buyers, encouraging more people to learn to read.

Printed maps and voyage reports spread knowledge of new routes. Scientists could share detailed findings. Books in everyday languages reached readers who did not know Latin. Printers also helped spelling become more regular. Luther's arguments spread through printed pamphlets.

A press could print false stories too. Many identical copies made a claim widespread, but did not make it true. If a pamphlet attacks a ruler, ask who printed it and what they wanted readers to believe.

In 1500, the Catholic Church shaped much of western European life. People argued about its wealth, leaders and teachings. These arguments grew into the Reformation.

Hear Luther's complaints

The Catholic Church ran schools and hospitals and owned land. Its leader was the pope in Rome. Some church leaders lived very richly, which angered critics.

Indulgences concerned punishment for sins after death. People were encouraged to give money in connection with them. In 1517, Johann Tetzel promoted indulgences in Germany to raise church funds. Martin Luther, a monk and teacher in Wittenberg, challenged this practice.

On October 31, 1517, Luther sent his 95 Theses, or arguments, to an archbishop. The familiar story says he also nailed them to a church door. Printed copies spread his ideas quickly.

Luther taught that salvation came through faith in God. He gave the Bible greater authority than the pope. He also wanted people to read it in their own language. His German New Testament was printed in 1522.

Follow the split

In 1521, the pope expelled Luther from the Church. This is called excommunication. Charles V demanded that Luther take back his words at Worms. Luther refused. Frederick the Wise protected him at Wartburg Castle, where he worked on his Bible translation.

Luther's followers and other reformers became known as Protestants. John Calvin was another important reformer. The Reformation split western European Christians into Catholic and Protestant churches. Both groups were Christian. Luther first wanted to reform the Catholic Church from within.

Understand why change spread

Complaints already existed. Luther gave people clear arguments. Printers carried those arguments to many towns. Supportive princes protected him and supported new churches. An earlier reformer, Jan Hus, was killed in 1415. Luther worked in a later world with printing and powerful protectors.

The Catholic Church responded at the Council of Trent, 1545–1563. It opposed money-making abuses around indulgences, improved priest training and restated Catholic teaching. It kept indulgences as part of that teaching. The Jesuits, founded in 1540, opened schools and sent missionaries abroad.

Religious divisions also brought wars and persecution. Some people moved to worship more freely, including the Pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower in 1620. The Peace of Augsburg in 1555 and Peace of Westphalia in 1648 helped settle religious conflicts. They did not give everyone equal freedom of belief.

Kings and queens helped pay for voyages and shape religious change. Their lands and powers differed. Some rulers shared decisions with other bodies; others gathered far more power.

Connect rulers with voyages and empires

Ferdinand and Isabella married in 1469. Their later joint rule linked Aragon and Castile. In 1492, they conquered Granada and sponsored Columbus. Their marriage helped form Spain, though their kingdoms kept separate institutions.

Charles V, born in Ghent in 1500, inherited lands across Europe and the Americas. He became Holy Roman Emperor in 1519. His lands were so widespread that people said the Sun never set on them. He confronted Luther at Worms and fought France and the Ottomans. In 1555–1556, he gave up his crowns, dividing his lands between his son Philip and brother Ferdinand.

Change England's Church

Henry VIII ruled England from 1509 to 1547. He wanted to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon because they had no living son. The pope refused. In 1534, Henry became head of England's Church, breaking papal control. He closed monasteries and took their wealth. His break with Rome did not immediately make him follow all Protestant teachings.

His daughter Elizabeth I ruled from 1558 to 1603. She restored a Protestant church settlement. She supported voyages, including Francis Drake's journey around the world from 1577 to 1580. In 1588, English forces defeated the Spanish Armada, sent by Philip II to invade England.

Compare kinds of royal power

Some rulers claimed divine right: God had given them authority to rule. Absolute monarchy means a ruler holds nearly all governing power. The claim about where power comes from and the amount of power are different ideas.

Louis XIV, France's Sun King, ruled from 1643 to 1715, a reign of 72 years. He built up Versailles and brought powerful nobles to his court, where he could watch them. He made major decisions himself and became a famous absolute monarch.

Henry's reign lasted 38 years. Louis's 72 years were almost twice as long. Length of reign, however, is different from power. In England, Parliament had to approve most taxes. English rulers had to work with it. Louis gathered much more control in France.