| A | B |
|---|
| Leif Eriksson | Norwegian explorer, son of Erik the Red, was first European to explore the Americas |
| Henry the Navigator | Prince of Portugal who established a school of navigation and financed trips of exploration |
| astrolabe | a device that enabled navigators to learn their ship's location by charting the position of the stars |
| caravels | ships that used triangular sails to sail against the wind, and had rudders to improve steering |
| Christopher Columbus | Italian explorer, he was convinced that he could reach Asia by sailing westward across the Atlantic Ocean. He gain the support of Spain's monarchs and commanded a small fleet that reached the so-called New World, setting off a tide of European exploration of the area |
| Line of Demarcation | boundary between Spanish and Portuguese territories in the New World |
| Treaty of Tordesillas | a treaty between Spain and Portugal tht moved the Line of Demarcation |
| Ferdinand Magellan | Portugese captain of a Spanish fleet that sought a western route to Asia via the "Southern Ocean," he found a passage through South American, now known as the Strait of Magellan, but died during the expedition. His crew of 18 people with one remaining ship successfully circumnavigated the world |
| circumnavigate | to travel all the way around the globe |
| Columbian Exchange | the transfer of plants, animals, and diseases between the Americas and Europe, Asia, and Africa |
| conquistadors | a Spanish soldier and explorer who led military expeditions in the Americas and captured land for Spain |
| Hernan Cortes | Spanish conquistador, he conquered Mexico and brought about the fall of the Aztec Empire |
| Moctezuma II | Emperor of Mexico's Aztec Empire, he welcomed explorer Cortes as a god but was taken prisoner by him. He was later killed, and the Aztec capital was destroyed during the following Aztec uprising |
| Francisco Pizarro | Spanish conquistador who sailed with Balboa on the discovery of the Pacific Ocean, he later pursued rumors of golden cities in the Andes Mountains of South America and conquered the Inca Empire |
| encomienda system | a system in Spanish America that gave settlers the right to tax local Indians or to demand their labor in exchange for protecting them and converting them to Christianity |
| plantations | a large farm that usually specialized in growing one kind of crop for profit |
| Bartolome de Las Casas | Spanish misionary and historian, he became the first ordained Catholic priest in the New World and advocated for the welfare and protection of Native Americans as well as preached against the slavery system |
| Protestant Reformation | a religious movement begun by Martin Luther and others in 1515 to reform the Catholic Church |
| Protestants | reformers who protested certain practices of the Catholic Church |
| Spanish Armada | a large fleet defeated by England in 1588 |
| Northwest Passage | a nonexistent path through North America the early explorers searched for that would allow ships to sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean |
| Jacques Cartier | French navigator who made three voyages to Canada for France. He explored the St. Lawrence River |
| charter | an official document that gives a person the right to establish a colony |
| immune | having a natural resistance to disease |
| Middle Passage | a voyage that brought enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to North American and the West Indes |
| African Diaspora | the populaton of displaced Africans and their descendants around the world |
