What is up everybody? Mr. Pertus here. Welcome to unit number four.
This is titled Trans-Oceanic Interconnectedness, which is a lot of syllables. Basically across oceans and how people become more interconnected between each other. This is 1450 to 1750, same time period as unit three.
So a lot of those gunpowder or land-based empires we talked about in the previous unit are at this exact same time as this unit. So we're going to see a lot of kind of connection between them. We're going to do a two-for-one today. Everyone always gets excited. You know, who doesn't like a two-for-one?
We're doing 4.1 and 4.2 here. This is basically European exploration, innovations, and causes and events. So we're going to look at some inventions. We're going to look at some causes. We're going to look at some effects, events.
We got lots to do here. So let's rock and roll on this. Here we go.
First is, I just want to put this into a little contextualization for you. Yes, I said contextualization. which essentially is what caused this European exploration. So there's really three that we're going to talk about here that are going to kind of go through, and we'll go through some events as we do this.
But the first one is, in the previous time period of circa 1200 to 1450, there were a lot of inventions that spread. And I know we talked about them, and you probably remember them. And if you don't, they're right on the bottom of the screen here.
That a lot of inventions that were developed in the Islamic world, in East Asia, and that had come from the classical time period before we even... stuff we talked about in this class. We have a lot of inventions that are going to make their way to Europe, really as a result of Mongol invasion, increase in trade, and more of this openness by Europe where they kind of emerge out of this dark age and isolation and self-sufficient period.
And these are some of the inventions. We have the Latin sail here, which is Byzantine Islamic. We obviously have the compass here, the astrolabe, and the printing press and map making. Without these inventions, the Europeans really aren't able to go out in this time period and explore. So...
A lot of these inventions, because they spread in the previous time period, which is contextualization, and they spread over to Europe, the Europeans are going to take these inventions and kind of make them their own and work on perfecting them to help them, whether it's go across the Atlantic or whether it's circumnavigate the world and go around Africa and go to India and China, because that's their goal, right? They want to try and get as close to India and China as possible and get these products to cut out all the middlemen along the way. So that's it.
Also with the Europeans, they're going to take a lot of these inventions and develop their own. Just a couple of basic things of these inventions. You don't need to necessarily memorize all of these. They're really just good examples for an essay queue or more evidence to back up a claim in an essay.
But just two examples of ships here. This is the typical Spanish and Portuguese ship from the 15th and 17th century, which is 1400s to the 1600s. And they're really going to take this Latine sail from the Byzantine and Islamic Empire, and they're going to use it in their shipmaking to travel and to attempt to explore.
So that's the Caravelle. And this is the Floyd. This is a Dutch ship. Less used for war, so you're not going to see a lot of cannons on this necessarily.
It's really about trade. So the cargo, the bottom of the boat is really to maximize cargo and to trade as much as possible. So it's less about conquering places.
It's the assumption that hopefully we won't have to go to war. And really, it's about transporting goods around the world. And that's what the purpose of the development of this ship is. Also, besides these new ships, we have a better understanding of winds. Winds, if you're using sails to sail your ship, you've got to understand the winds.
Really, up to this point, because the wind current are so tough coming over through... the Atlantic Ocean and pushing into Portugal and Spain. It was almost, it was really impossible for people to travel to, across the Atlantic Ocean or travel down towards Africa going this way.
It was just impossible. The winds were way too tough and it would just push your boat like right back here. So what they realized is if they go down this way and go along the coast, the wind will push them down and then eventually they can kind of go this way and go down.
So instead of going straight west, they're going to go south. and then west. And then on the way back, they're going to kind of let these winds take them up this way and across. And understanding these wind patterns is a key environmental thing.
We talked about this as well with the monsoon winds in the previous time period. You've got to understand wind currents if you're going to trade during this time period, at least until we get into the time period of more motorized boats. This is what we see.
So that's that. Number two, so that's the first cause is all these inventions. The second cause is we have what's called state-sponsored exploration.
We have governments that are going to sponsor explorers to go out and to try and find new routes. European governments are going to sponsor not only these voyages but also schools where you really pump money as a government. You pump money into schools that are going to solely focus on maritime technology, new inventions for this overseas trade, and just people working on mapmaking skills and how to go about and be more successful at exploration.
So the leaders of this in the early 1400s and especially around 1450 is the Portuguese and the Spanish. And you can imagine why they are right on the Iberian Peninsula here. They're literally looking out at an ocean. where they don't know how far that ocean goes and how long it will take to get to China and India, but they see themselves as in a prime spot to actually go out and explore.
Portugal actually creates their own navigation schools, their own astronomical observatory, because if you need, if you're traveling and you might have a compass, but you also need to use the stars in order to figure out where to go. So they're going to train students in a lot of this map making, science, maritime, and this term maritime that I used already, but this maritime just means overseas. It's just a fancy way of saying it, maritime technology.
And the goal really for them is to try and go this way around Africa. If you remember in the previous time period, if you're the Europeans, you got to go into this area right here to trade. And remember, the Byzantine Empire was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. And the Europeans do not want to have to trade with the Ottoman Empire, nor do the Ottomans necessarily want to trade with the Europeans. They place an extra tax on stuff.
So the Europeans are looking for a cheaper, better way to kind of cut out all the middlemen or middle people who bring the goods here into Istanbul from East Asia. So they're trying to go this way around Africa. It takes a while.
It's not like one day it's like this. It's over a hundred years that it takes to actually do this. So we got Portugal and Spain are really leading the way.
Just a quick little Spanish side note to this. During this time period, Spain is very much a... very devoutly Catholic country. And there's a time period in specifically 1492, the same time that the Spanish are sponsoring voyages, called the Reconquista, which is basically the reconquering.
And the Spanish Catholic kings are going to attempt to expel all Jews and Muslims from Spain in a time period that's called the Spanish Inquisition. So Reconquista is to reconquer it for Catholics. The Spanish Inquisition is the attempt to...
put on trial and arrest those Jews and Muslims. Essentially through torture, they would force these Jews and Muslims to either convert to Catholicism or would kill them. Really kind of a horrific time in Spanish history.
But this is what this shows outside of obviously being extremely anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim. is also this devoutness towards their own religion of Catholicism and the belief that if you're not Catholic, you don't belong in Spain. And compare that with the Ottoman Empire, the Mughal Empire at the same time period that are allowing religious toleration just a little bit different.
We're going to see a lot of competition between Spain and Portugal. So the first major Spanish explorer who's going to make their way this way is really Christopher Columbus, who we'll get into in a different video. Because. He kind of deserves, we got to talk and separate some stuff with that. There's a lot of Catholic influence here.
And the goal of the Catholics is to convert people and to promote Catholic beliefs. And Spain and Portugal are both Catholic. I just want to say one more time, Spain and Portugal, both Catholic.
And the people that they are going to encounter, they are going to attempt to force their beliefs on them. Now, they're both Catholic, like I just said. So the Pope, who is the head of Catholics, is worried that his two Catholic...
Countries are going to go to war with each other. So he forces them to sign a treaty, the Treaty of Tordesillas right here. And what the Pope says is, I'm going to split this new area for Europeans, what they are referring to as the new world for Europeans, that they're going to draw a line right here, basically, and say everything on this side of the line belongs to the Portuguese, according to the Pope.
And everything on this side of the line... will now belong to the Spanish. And if you look at this map, now keep in mind the Europeans have no idea really what lies behind here.
We're two years into, not even, like a year and a half into Columbus's first voyages into the Caribbean here. And we don't know how big this land is. There's no map making skills yet of this area.
So they don't know who's getting the good deal here. But really, if you look at this map, would you rather have all this or would you rather have this? And the Spanish really get a much better deal here. And the major goal of all this through the Pope is I want to convert people to Catholicism.
How can we increase our Catholic followers? Whether it's forced conversion, whether it is burning down of ancient buildings, we need more Catholics here. So that's what the Pope attempts to do.
So the two of these groups are going to really create a global empire. They're going to have, so the Portuguese are going to have this piece of land here, some areas on the Swahili coast, here on the west coast of Africa, a little bit in India, and over. in this region.
We also have the Spanish. You can see that. We'll get into a lot of that stuff in the next video.
So more to come on that. But I just want to point out that the two create a global empire. Lastly, cause number three, not everyone in Europe is Catholic. In fact, in the 14 and 1500s, there is a reformation or an attempt to reform the Catholic Church.
And the people who attempt to reform it are referred to as Protestants because they are protesting some issues that they see within the Catholic Church. So this is called the The Protestant Reformation. Protest, reform in Europe.
And there's a whole bunch of issues that people see within the Catholic Church. First, the Catholic Church has been selling what are called indulgences. These are little pieces of paper that you can buy to get yourself into heaven.
Both yourself, and then eventually they say, hey, your grandma, man, she's in purgatory. Buy this piece of paper from us and she'll automatically, God will zap her up into heaven. And people who are Catholic are like, okay. Some people who started questioning this and said, this is not really how you get into heaven by buying a piece of paper. Also, the Catholic Church is using a lot of this money to build big things that are very fancy and almost like that art and architecture that monarchs show off.
It looks very similar. So we see things like the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, which is the picture here. And a lot of people see these things and they're like, I'm not really feeling what you're doing here. Also, there's the biggest crux of all this. The biggest issue is...
how do you get into heaven? And Catholics think it's faith that belief in God and good works get you into heaven. And a lot of people say it's not really about doing good.
It's just about believing in God and we should separate from this church. The first to protest is this guy right here. His name is Martin Luther.
If you remember this from some point in your educational career, he had a list of 95 complaints that he called the 95 theses. He went to a church, posted them on, and hammered it into the door before Sunday mass. And people were like, Oh my God. My goodness, no you didn't. And he's the first to protest.
And when he protests and when he's the first, others start saying, well, I don't agree with Luther, but I don't believe with the church, so I'm going to separate in my own way. So your question is, how does this lead to exploration? Some people who are Protestants are going to leave their Catholic countries to set up a new government and a place where they can practice freely.
So, We're going to have people who are going to come into this North American area, and if you've ever taken a U.S. history course, you probably know this, where people are going to come into this area to attempt to flee what they consider religious persecution in their homeland. Now, the X factor of this is these people are going to flee religious persecution and then persecute the people that they meet who are the Native Americans in this area, but they are leaving religious persecution. And this is a motivating factor for people and a cause of exploration because people who are leaving... Like the Puritans who are trying to purify the religion are going to leave England and try and come to, for example, Massachusetts Bay Colony.
So that is part of all of this. So that's what I got. A lot of stuff going on there.
We got three causes, right? And we have a bunch of effects and outcomes to this. We'll get into more of the specific nitty gritty details of what happens and how they conquer and how they treat people that they conquered in the next videos.
As always, if you have any questions. Write it down. Let me know.
I'm out.