section_path: End of the period
section_name: End of the period
paragraph_text: End of the period
  
  As the post-classical era drew to a close in the 15th century, many of the empires established throughout the period were in decline. The Byzantine Empire would soon be overshadowed in the Mediterranean by both Islamic and Christian rivals including Venice, Genoa, and the Ottoman Empire. The Byzantines faced repeated attacks from eastern and western powers during the Fourth Crusade, and declined further until the loss of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453.
  
  The largest change came in terms of trade and technology. The global significance of the fall of the Byzantines was the disruption of overland routes between Asia and Europe. Traditional dominance of nomadism in Eurasia declined and the Pax Mongolica which had allowed for interactions between different civilizations was no longer available. West Asia and South Asia were conquered by gunpowder empires which successfully used advances in military technology but closed the Silk Road.
  
  Europeans – specifically the Portuguese and various Italian explorers – intended to replace land travel with sea travel. Originally European exploration merely looked for new routes to reach known destinations. Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama traveled to India by sea in 1498 by circumnavigating Africa around the Cape of Good Hope. India and the coast of Africa were already known to Europeans but none had attempted a large trading mission prior to that time. Due to navigation advances Portugal would create a global colonial empire beginning with the conquest of Malacca in modern-day Malaysia from 1511.
  
  Other explorers such as the Spanish-sponsored Italian Christopher Columbus intended to engage in trade by traveling on unfamiliar routes west from Europe. The subsequent European discovery of the Americas in 1492 resulted in the Columbian exchange and the world's first pan-oceanic globalization. Spanish explorer Ferdinand Magellan performed the first known circumnavigation of Earth in 1521. The transfer of goods and diseases across oceans was unprecedented in creating a more connected world. From developments in navigation and trade, modern history began.