European overseas expansion led to the contact between the Old and New Worlds producing the Columbian Exchange, named after Columbus. It started the global silver trade from the 16th to 18th centuries and led to direct European involvement the Chinese porcelain trade. It involved the transfer of goods unique to one hemisphere to another. Europeans brought cattle, horses, and sheep to the New World, and from the New World Europeans received tobacco, potatoes and maize. Other items becoming important in global trade were the sugarcane and cotton crops of the Americas, and the gold and silver brought from the Americas not only to Europe but elsewhere in the Old World.