Exploration

Viking Age

The term Viking commonly denotes the ship-borne explorers, traders, and warriors of the Norsemen (literally, men from the north) who originated in Scandinavia and raided the coasts of the British Isles, France and other parts of Europe as far east as the Volga River in Russia from the late 8th century to the 11th century. This period of European history (generally dated to 793–1066) is often referred to as the Viking Age. It may also be used to denote the entire populations of Viking Age Scandinavia and their settlements elsewhere.

Famed for their navigational abilities and the longship, the Vikings, in three centuries, founded settlements along the coasts and rivers of mainland Europe, Ireland, Normandy, the Shetland, Orkney, and Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland circa 1000.[1] Their influence reached as far south as North Africa, east into Russia and to Constantinople, where they were looters, but also traders and mercenaries. Vikings under the command of Leif Ericcson, heir to Erik the Red, are also known to have been early explorers of North America, with putative expeditions to present-day Canada as early as the 10th century. Viking voyages grew less frequent with the introduction of Christianity to Scandinavia in the late 10th and 11th century. The Viking Age is often considered to have ended with the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066.

The Age of Discovery

The Age of Discovery or Age of Exploration was a period from the early 15th century and continuing into the early 17th century, during which European ships traveled around the world to search for new trading routes and partners to feed burgeoning capitalism in Europe. They also were in search of trading goods such as gold, silver and spices. In the process, Europeans encountered peoples and mapped lands previously unknown to them. Among the most famous explorers of the period were Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Pedro Álvares Cabral, John Cabot, Yermak, Juan Ponce de León, Juan Sebastian Elcano, Bartholomew Dias, Ferdinand Magellan, Willem Barentsz, Abel Tasman, Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain, Willem Jansz and Captain James Cook.
The Age of Exploration was rooted in new technologies and ideas growing out of the Renaissance. These included advances in cartography, navigation, firepower and shipbuilding. Many people wanted to find a route to Asia through the west of Europe. The most important development was the invention of first the carrack and then caravel in Iberia. These vessels evolved from medieval European designs with a fruitful combination of Mediterranean and North Sea innovations and the addition of some Arabic elements. They were the first ships that could leave the relatively passive Mediterranean and sail safely on the open Atlantic


End of the Age of Exploration

The age of exploration is generally said to have ended in the early seventeenth century. By this time European vessels were well enough built and their navigators competent enough to travel to virtually anywhere on the planet. Exploration, of course, continued. The Arctic and Antarctic seas were not explored until the nineteenth century. It also took much longer for Europeans to reach the interior of continents such as North America, though the Amazon basin was crossed and the centre of what is now the United States was reached by the middle of the 16th century by Spanish conquistadores. Africa´s deep interior was not explored by Europeans until the mid to late 19th and early 20th centuries, partly because of a lack of trade potential in this region (slaves were purchased at coastal settlements), in part due to serious problems with contagious diseases in sub-Saharan Africa and the powerful Muslim Ottoman empire in the north