TB+Chapter+1+Notes

// Chapter 1 Notes  // About 225 million years ago the Earth was made up of one the giant land mass. Huge shifts in planet caused the super continent to fracture and then spilt into the continents we know today; Eurasia, Australia, Antarctica, Africa, and the Americas. About 2 million years ago the Earth experienced the “Great Ice Age” which blanketed Canada and the northern United States. The Ice Age froze most of the world’s oceans and allowed the movement of people from east Asia across a “Land Bridge” which appeared in the Ice Age as the oceans started to freeze. This bridge was found located in the Bering Strait and it connected present day Siberia to Alaska. The world thawed and the oceans again melted and the water levels rose, which cut off the early human immigrants that had come from Eurasia. People spilt into tribes with different cultures, languages, and religion. Even homes differed based on where they lived and how. They also learned how to grow crops which spread all over the Americas. The people of the Americas felt that the Earth had spiritual properties so they did not want to change nature. In about 1492, there were fewer than 4 million in the Americas. Some Norseseafares landed in present day Newfoundland in 1000, but the discovery was forgotten. Europeans during the 1400’s were focused on exotic riches from China and Indonesia. One cause of Marco Polo’s book was the vast wealth and exotic goods of China. Also, Europeans entered Africa for some reasons and then continued to setup trading posts on the African coast. These would later be the same trading posts that would sell African slaves. African slaves were used as a sign of wealth in Europe and cheap labor on the sugar and tobacco plantations of the Americas. Spain united under Catholicism and started looking for another route to China. Christopher Columbus sailed west looking for a shorter route to China but failed and hit modern day Cuba and Hispaniola. He went to his death believing, he had hit India. The exchange of crops and animals occurred in 1493 with Europeans trading horses, cows, pigs, wheat, sugar, rice, and coffee. They took back corn, potatoes, pineapples, tomatoes, tobacco, beans, vanilla, and chocolate. The Spanish also brought illness which destroyed most of the native population. The “Conquistadors” traveled through Mexico, Caribbean, South America, and Southern America looking for gold and silver which they stole from the Incas and Aztecs. The Europeans exploited the “Indians” as slaves, the very Catholic Spain sent missionaries into the West of the United States. South America was spilt up by the Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal. Spain got most territories of the New World, and Portugal gained Brazil and the African ports.