Greetings--
European exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries was aided by
advances in shipbuilding and commercial techniques.
"Portuguese exploration and trade along the West African coast and the
Atlantic islands, encouraged and directed by Prince Henry de Avis, the
Navigator, continued throughout the 15th century. He assembled an
international team of experts which made revolutionary advances in
geography, navigation, and cartography.
"Handbooks, guides, and charts, along with the invention of more
sophisticated and practical nautical instruments, professionalized
what had been largely an intuitive craft. Crucial to these innovations
were Muslim and Jewish contributions in mapmaking and navigational
instruments. Christopher Columbus went to sea on the crest of these
maritime advances."
1492: An Ongoing Voyage
(http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/1492/intro.html)
This online Library of Congress exhibit provides valuable and
comprehensive information about the world of 1492 before, during, and
after Columbus's expedition.
http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/1492/intro.html
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An excellent source of detailed information about explorers, maps, the
times they lived in and their technology can be found on the
Discoverer's Web
http://www.win.tue.nl/cs/fm/engels/discovery/
The Columbus Navigation Homepage
"Examining the History, Navigation, and Landfall of Christopher
Columbus"
http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/
An outstanding multimedia project, The European Voyages of
Exploration, has been put together by the Applied History Research
Group at the University of Calgary.
http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/eurvoya/index.html
Almost everything you could want to know about Columbus is in the
Computerized Information Retrieval System (CIRS) on Columbus and the
Age of Discovery in 1989 at Millersville University. A joint research
project of the History Department and Academic Computing Services,
CIRS is a text retrieval system containing over 1100 text articles
from magazines, journals, newspapers, speeches, official calendars and
other sources relating to various encounter themes.
http://muweb.millersv.edu/~columbus/
Another extensive resource page from Murray State University is
http://coekate.murraystate.edu/kate/month/august/columbus/default.htm
Books on the subject include:
De Vorsey, Louis. Keys to the Encounter: A Library of Congress
Resource Guide for the Study of the Age of Discovery. Washington:
Library of Congress, 1992.
Harley, J.B. and David Woodward, ed. History of Cartography. Vol. I.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Phillips, William D., Jr, and Carla Rahn Phillips. The Worlds of
Christopher Columbus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Have a good voyage.
Nellie Bly |
