| A | B |
|---|
| explore | search for new things or places |
| Vikings | people who came from Norway, Denmark, and Sweden |
| saga | long folk tales telling of battles, customs, and legends |
| Eric the Red | father of Leif Ericson who first settled Greenland in 982 |
| Leif Ericson | son of Eric the Red who traveled to Vinland, or Newfoundland |
| merchant | person who buys and sells goods |
| navigation | science of locating the direction and distance of ships traveling at sea |
| Marco Polo | man from Italy who traveled to China and India for silks, jewels, and spices in 1271 |
| Prince Henry | prince from Portugal who began a navigation school for sea captains |
| Bartholomew Dias | ventured around tip of Africa in 1488 during a storm |
| Vasco de Gama | rounded tip of Africa with fleet of four ships to find all water route to Asia ten years after Dias |
| port | place where ships can load and unload cargo |
| Christopher Columbus | Italian sea captain who decided to sail west to reach the Indies four times beginning in 1492 |
| isthmus | narrow strip of land between two bodies of water |
| Vasco Nunez de Balboa | Spanish explorer who sailed from Hispaniola to Panama |
| Ferdinand Magellan | Portuguese sailor who wanted to sail around South America to the Pacific Ocean |
| northwest passage | waterway through or around North America that would lead to Asia |
| rapid | place where shallow water races across a rocky bottom |
| gulf | part of ocean or sea that pushes inland |
| Giovanni de Verrazano | Italian sailor hired by the French to find a northwest passage |
| Jacques Cartier | French sailor who crossed the Atlantic to find northwest passage and discovered the Gulf of St. Lawrence near Canada |
