ME+Chapter+One

· The basic geological form of North America came to be about 10,000,000 years ago · The glaciers retreated about 10,000 years ago making North America what we recognize today · Around 35,000 years ago sea level dropped showing a land bridge connecting Eurasia with North America · Nomadic Asian hunters continued to cross land bridge for 250 centuries · Sea level rose again covering land bridge 10.00 years ago · Europeans arrived in 1492 when the native population was spread throughout both North and South America · Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs had surprisingly sophisticated civilizations · Corn planting arriving in about 1200 BC powerfully molded Pueblo culture · Scandinavia found the northeastern part of North America in AD 1000 · Named it Vineland but their discovery was soon abandoned and forgotten · Marco Polo, returning to Europe in 1295, described China as what might actually have been the new world · October 12, 1492 Christopher Columbus found an island off the Bahamas · New world plants being gifts to the Europeans revolutionized the European diet and economy · Christopher Columbus giving cattle, swine, and horses let the Apaches, Sioux and Blackfoot tribes become hunters · The Europeans also unknowingly brought seeds such as bluegrass, dandelions, daisies, and diseases · Spain secured its claim to Columbus’s discovery with the Treaty of Tordesillas · Ferdinand Magellan left Spain in 1519 with five tiny boats and was slain by an inhabitant of the Philippines · 1513 and 1542 Francisco Coronado discovered the Grand Canyon and Colorado River · Giovanni Caboto explored the north eastern coast of North America in 1497 and 1598 · Giovanni de Verranzo probed the eastern seaboard in 1524 · Coronado’s takes from the 1540s beckoned him northward · Don Suan de Onate led men from the Sonora desert from Mexico into the Rio Grande valley in 1958 · Proclaimed the province of New Mexico in 1609 · Indian uprising in 1608 Bre’s rebellion · 1680s French expedition down Mississippi River under La Salle