Tag: modern age in europe: the renaissance

Expeditions were financed by European kings and queens. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella agreed to sponsor the expedition, and on 3 August 1492, Columbus and his fleet of three ships, the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Niña, set sail across the Atlantic.

Petrarch was a poet and scholar whose humanist philosophy set the stage for the Renaissance. He is also considered one of the fathers of the modern Italian language. Dante and other supporters were his followers. 

The failure of the Manchu Dynasty to protect China from foreign aggression and to carry out extensive economic and political reforms had convinced a large number of intellectuals and members of the upper classes that the Chinese people must get rid of the “foreign yoke” of the Manchus and of the thousand-year-old absolute monarchy if they wanted to create a new, strong, modern China. The bravest supporters of a republican form of government were the revolutionaries led by the founding father of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen.

In England, the small peasants were being deprived of their land by landlords. Since the Native Americans mostly acted in friendship and extended help and cooperation to the Europeans, many of these peasants migrated to North America and wished to settle down there. Eventually, they forced the Native Americans to give up their land by killing and driving them into the interior.

The western European countries invested large amounts of money by hiring experienced sea mariners and giving them ships and other resources to explore new routes. This led to the discovery of Central America by Christopher Columbus in 1492. He thought he reached India and called the local people Indians. That is why the original inhabitants of America are called Native Indians today.

Martin Luther was a German professor, composer, priest, and monk.  He rejected several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church and led the Protestant Reformation in 1517.

Most of the trade routes that connected Europe and Asia around 1400 were controlled by Muslim kingdoms, especially the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman army was the largest in Europe. The Ottoman Empire was constantly at war with the European Christian powers.