|
The first known navigators were the Phoenicians, who 3000 years
ago sailed the Mediterranean and beyond from their base near
modern Lebanon. Justinian's mission to China in
the 6th century A.D., the Viking expeditions of the 9th - 10th
centuries, and Marco Polo's trip to China
in 1270 opened new horizons. Then Portugal's Prince Henry
the Navigator established a school of navigation whose
influence touched a young Italian sailor and changed the world.
Christopher
Columbus sailed west in 1492, a date that began the Age
of Exploration. Vasco da Gama in 1497 rounded Africa
and sailed to India, opening the route to the east. Expeditions
to the Americas by Amerigo Vespucci, Ferdinand Magellan,
Cortes, Pizarro, Sir Walter Raleigh, and
others soon followed. Over the 16th to 19th centuries came the
inland explorations that created the modern world.
Expanding
settlement and commerce required better maps and navigation
methods; a grid system of latitudes and longitudes, originally
proposed by the ancient Greeks, was revived. Cartographers struggled
with the task of representing a spherical earth on a flat map;
dozens of map projections were developed. By the 20th century,
new areas of discovery produced better navigational technology,
more and more maps, and yet more horizons for future discovery.
|
