Age of Discovery

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Age of Discovery Reasons The desire to explore and discover new areas or substances has always existed in our world and continues to exist to this day. This desire was especially prevalent back in the 15th and 16th centuries. This period is called the Age of Discovery and was a period of European global exploration. Europeans had begun to have access to greater technology and knowledge that allowed them to start exploring the seas and discovering new lands. These explorations were not especially safe, which may lead to some asking why they felt the need to go on them. There are numerous reasons for their desire to explore, but the three most important motives were the quest for riches, the quest for glory, and the quest to bring God. The quest for riches is fairly simple to explain. Every country and most every individual to this day has a desire to get wealthier. The European countries at that time were no different. They wished to travel the world in order to find more sources of wealth that may not be available to them in Europe. The crusades actually played a big role in this quest, because they “opened the door of demand for spices and perfumes” (Unit 1, part 1, page 2). Because of this, European nations wanted to take advantage of this new found desire and find new products or resources that could be used for spices. Another way the crusades helped pave the way for exploration was by opening trade routes between the east and west. This is one the major reasons for the explorations. European nations were tired of interference from Arabs when it came to their trade with the East Indies, so they wished to find more direct trade routes in order to avoid Arab interference. Overall, the opportunity to create wealth and cut trade costs was one of the key reasons for many of the explorations. Another theme that stands true to this day is that

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