Well, it sure was nice to meet all the indigenous peoples of the Americas in the last video. But hold on to your butts because here come the Europeans, y'all. And if you're in the mood to understand the causes of European exploration, then I'm in the mood to explain it up real nice for you. So, if you're ready to get them brain cows milt, let's get to it. Okay, the first thing you need to know is that Europeans didn't just wake up one day and go exploring for poops and giggles. It was actually the result of a bunch of interweaving developments that occurred in the century prior to this period. Now, if you'll recall from your world history class from about 1200 to 1450, Europe was kind of a laughable side note on the stage of world powers. You know, while China and the Islamic empires and all the rest were positively dominating everybody's crap across Afroureasia, European states were decentralized and kind of pitly. Oh, and by the way, if you want note guys to follow along with this video and all my videos along with quizzes to help you remember this stuff, well, check that link in the description. Anyway, Europe's population tanked on account of the black plague and they experienced hard times agriculturally during a period of global cooling known as the little icing. But in the century before our period starts in this course, Europeans were about to find some power pants and put them all the way on. And let me tell you about the developments that helped them do this. First, the climate got warmer and then that led to second improved productivity in agriculture aided by new farming techniques and technology. Third, more food led to more babies and European population started growing quick, fast, and in a hurry. Fourth, that situation led to a revived desire to trade on the world market, especially for those tasty luxury goods from Asia. And then fifth, the Renaissance began in Italy and then spread throughout Europe and that constituted a kind of cultural rebirth in various European states. And six, that cultural rebirth went handinhand with various movements of political unification which strengthened the governments of several European states. So all of this taken together meant that Europe became far more stable and powerful than it had been in a long time and they were ready to go out exploring. Okay, so those are the reasons that Europeans could explore. But now the question dear pupil is why did they explore? And I got three reasons for you. Gold, god and glory. So the first motive for European exploration is gold which is a funner way of saying that they went exploring on account of economic motives. Now as I mentioned before some Europeans were getting wealthier and they wanted more and more of those luxury goods from Asia. But as it turned out they had a big fat problem on their hands. You see at this point in history the main trade routes connecting Europe to Asia were land routes. The most notable of which for our purposes was the Silk Road. But in 1453, the Ottoman Empire went ahead and conquered Constantinople, which was a key choke point for European trade with Asia. And since those rascally Ottomans now dictated the terms of trade, Europeans wanted to figure out another way to the Asian market. And so they looked at the ocean and were like, "Hey, you know how we got a bunch of boats?" Now, I know this might sound crazy, but I bet we could float to Asia. You're a dang genius. And so combine the rising European demand for Eastern goods with improved banking systems that help facilitate trade, and baby, you got an exploration stew going. So the first mover in that regard was Portugal. And under the leadership of our boy Prince Henry the Navigator, the Portuguese sailed around Africa in order to access the riches of the Indian Ocean trade. And then in 1498, Vasco Dama was the first to successfully sail around the Cape of Good Hope and establish a Portuguese presence in the east. And Portugal's method here was to establish trading posts all around the African coast and throughout the Indian Ocean. So that means that the Portuguese didn't really establish what we'd think of as colonies in all these places, but instead they created what's known as a trading post empire. And by the end of the 16th century, the Portuguese had come to dominate the Indian Ocean trade, which made them fabulously wealthy. And right about then, Portugal's neighbor Spain, or if you're sassy, Espa, decided that they too wanted to cash in on the riches of maritime exploration. But since the Portuguese went ahead and lifted their leg and peed all over the Indian Ocean trade, thereby claiming it as a dog might claim a mailbox. The Spanish wanted to find a different way to the Asian markets. And wouldn't you know it, right about then, a Genoise sailor by the name of Christopher Columbus showed up in the Spanish court asking the monarchs to fund an exploration westward across the Atlantic Ocean. This happened to be right after the Portuguese told him no. So, you know, big mistake. Anyway, after hearing Columbus' request, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were like, "Ain't no idea. Here, take all our money." Now, here's where I'd tell you that Columbus wasn't the only one who believed that the Earth was a sphere. Like, the ancient Greeks mathematally understood. Anyway, Columbus set sail from Spain in 1492 in order to reach Asian and Southeast Asian markets. But even though everyone knew that the Earth was a sphere, Columbus and all the Matthew Matthew people underestimated the size of the Earth by about 25%. And so when he landed in the Caribbean, Columbus was convinced that he had made it all the way to Asia. Now, in time, the Spanish would figure out exactly how to squeeze enormous amounts of wealth out of the new world. And that would only further motivate them to continue exploring these previously unknown continents. But we're going to save the rest of that juicy tale for the next video. But for now, let's consider the second cause of European exploration, namely God. Which is to say they had religious motives. Now, in order to understand this, you're going to need to know that Europe was going through a period of religious crisis in the 15th and 16th centuries. And while there were religious minorities in Europe, most notably Jews and Muslims, the dominant belief system there was Christianity. But it wasn't just any flavor of Christianity. No, this was Roman Catholic Christianity. And the Roman Catholic Church had played a significant role in creating a common culture throughout Europe. But in the 15th century, a few reformed-minded Catholics started getting a little cranky about what they saw as abuses and corruption in the church. For example, they criticized the church for the practice of simony, which was the buying and selling of important church positions. That means it wasn't the most spiritual people who were becoming priests or cardinals or whatever. It was the people who had enough money to buy their way into the cloth. And that situation, not surprisingly, resulted in quite a few ecclesiastical turds whom the common people found prodigiously stank. And then the church also engaged in the sale of indulgences which meant that people could pay to have their sins or you know their family sins forgiven and thus secure an easier way to heaven. Now to put it mildly the church officials loved this because you know all them basilas and golden toilets ain't going to pay for themselves. Not even to mention that this situation helped the elite maintain positions of power. But in 1517 one of those cranky reformers by the name of Martin Luther stood up and called a turd a turd. Now, he wrote a series of complaints about the corrupted elements of the church in a document known as the 95 thesis, then nailed it to the church door in Vittenberg. Long story short, that act launched the Protestant Reformation and led to a permanent split in the Christian church. And now what you see is European states embracing either Catholic Christianity or Protestant Christianity. Furthermore, since there was really no such thing at this time as the separation of church and state, the religious feud also became a political feud with each European power contending over who were the true Christians and the most powerful state. And predictably that led to a series of religious wars in which Europeans were killing other Europeans to prove which one loved Jesus the most. Anyway, all this is happening right at the same moment when European states are beginning to venture out into maritime exploration. And they use that opportunity to prove that their version of Christianity was the best by spreading it all over the dang world. Take Spain for example. Since about the 8th century, Muslims have controlled dang near all of the Iberian Peninsula. But by the 13th century, they controlled a much smaller portion of Spain known as the Emirate of Granada. And that happened because the Spanish gradually had taken territory from them over time. However, in 1469, a momentous event occurred when the two most powerful kingdoms in Spain were united by the marriage of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. And now that their armies were combined, they had more than enough power to lead the Reconista, which finally ousted the Muslims from Catholic Spain in 1492. And then they further wielded their Catholic hammer by instigating the Inquisition, which eliminated religious descent in Spain and expelled something like 200,000 Jews in the process. So, all of that is going on at the very same moment that Columbus, that saucy Italian sailor, showed up asking for money to find a westward passage to Asia. And since the Spanish crown was positively drunk on their success in killing and torturing a bunch of denters in order to prove the supremacy of Catholic Jesus, they were more than willing to fund Columbus' trip. I mean, for sure, they wanted the wealth that came from such trade, but they also reckoned that there were probably a lot of people in Asia who didn't believe that Catholic Jesus was the best, and the Spanish had some ideas about how to convince And since the Protestant Reformation put a sizable smackdown on the reign of Catholicism, success in these missionary endeavors gave them a chance to reassert Catholic dominance. And finally, European states were motivated to explore for the glory, which is to say they had political motive. Now, once contact was made between the old and new worlds, it quickly became a competition between European states to acquire colonial possessions in order to shift the balance of power toward themselves. And throughout the 16th century, Spain was for sure winning this game because they colonized the crap out of the Americas. And so other European powers, not too stoked about Spain possessing the one ring to rule them all, decided that they too needed to explore and colonize, if only to keep the balance of power straight. Additionally, political change was occurring in some European states in which large multithnic empires were breaking apart while small kingdoms were uniting and becoming more powerful, like we saw for example with Isabella and Ferdinand in Spain. Anyway, this new political reality coming into being was called the nation state, which by definition is a political entity that governs more or less a single unified people. And again, as nation states begin to emerge, it promotes fierce competition to become the most powerful. And don't forget that the Protestant Reformation added a religious ingredient to this competition. And you know, I mean, if you know anything about anything, religious competition typically does not chill people out. So, you know, it got nasty. So, a good example of that competition was the spat between Spain and Portugal regarding their colonial claims in the Americas. And that kind of competition is certainly going to lead to armed conflicts later, but this is an example of the conflict being solved diplomatically, which is to say, they used their talkie-talkie parts and then hugged it out in a tree. So the short version is that both states were getting angry because their colonial possessions in the Americas were starting to overlap. And so because they were both Catholic states, the pope settled this dispute by drawing a line of demarcation which settled the question of which new world territories belong to whom. Now in 1494 that line was moved slightly and then codified in the treaty of Torisas which established Portugal's claim to part of Brazil and then Spain's claim to pretty much every other part of Americas, much of which they didn't even know was there yet. Now clearly the pope did not find it necessary to invite the indigenous peoples of the Americas into that negotiation. But as we're going to see in the next few videos, they were in no way stoked about this arrangement. All right. Well, you can click here to keep reviewing my other unit one videos, and you can click here to grab my video note guides, which are going to help you get all the content of this course firmly crammed into your brain folds. And I'll catch you on the flip-flop. I'm La.