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Vasco da Gama | PBS World Explorers | PBS LearningMedia

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In order to bypass the treacherous silk roads, Vasco da Gama became the first person to find a sea route from Europe to Asia's lucrative trade centers. Born into a noble Portuguese family, da Gama was a talented navigator and ship captain.

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The Great Age of Exploration 1400 1550 Documentary

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When Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama set foot in India

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Watch til 4:45

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Ferdinand Magellan  - First Circumnavigation of the Earth

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How Magellan Navigated the World: Ted Ed

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How Magellan Navigated the World: Ted Ed

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How Magellan circumnavigated the globe - Ewandro Magalhaes

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The Atlantic slave trade: What too few textbooks told you - Anthony Hazard

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Start watching from after 1:50 onward

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Tordesillas - How the Pope divided the world between Spain and Portugal

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Christopher Columbus: What Really Happened!

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Christopher Columbus: What Really Happened!

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The First Contact between Native Americans and Spanish People

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The First Contact between Native Americans and Spanish People

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Christopher Columbus - The Discovery Of America And What Happened After

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Vasco da Gama: Portuguese Explorer - Fast Facts | History

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The first contact between Europeans and Native Americans

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Effects of European Colonization: Christopher Columbus and Native Americans

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English explorer Henry Hudson was determined to find the Northwest Passage via the Arctic Circle - even after his crew mutinied. Learn more about his lifelong

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Henry Hudson | PBS World Explorers | PBS LearningMedia

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English explorer Henry Hudson was born at the height of the age of exploration in Europe, as navigators hunted for new routes to Asia. Hudson's multiple voyages to the arctic in search of a Northwest passage eventually set the stage for British colonial dominance in North America.

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Did Columbus Discover that the Earth Was Round?

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Did Columbus Discover that the Earth Was Round?

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Wrong: Despite a persistent legend, neither Columbus nor his Spanish patrons though Earth was a finite plane instead of a round planet. And you can blame one of the United States' greatest authors for creating a myth that still surrounds one of history's best-known figures.

When Columbus set sail in 1492, he predicted he'd make landfall in Asia. Legend has it that he defied Spanish officials to do so, sailing west instead of East because he was certain the world was round.

That was thanks to scientists, philosophers and mathematicians who, as early as around 600 B.C., made observations that Earth was round. Using calculations based on the sun's rise and fall, shadows and other physical properties of the planet, Greek scholars like Pythagoras and Aristotle determined that the planet is actually a sphere.

During Columbus' time, educated people carefully studied knowledge passed down by the ancient Greeks. Thus, it's nearly impossible-and completely implausible-that rich Spaniards of the late 15th century though Columbus would fall off the edge of the map.

The myth of Columbus' supposed flat earth theory is tempting: It casts the explorer's intrepid journey in an even more daring light. Problem is, it's completely untrue. The legend doesn't even date from Columbus' own lifetime. Rather, it was invented in 1828, when Washington Irving published The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus .

"Is there anyone so foolish, as to believe [in] people who walk with their heels upward, and their head hanging down?" one of the Catholic geographers supposedly exclaimed when Columbus told him the Earth was a circle and not a flat line.

The real fools were Irving's readers, who were taken in by his inaccurate account. And when his book became a runaway bestseller, the supposed confrontation between the rational explorer and the dogmatic official was accepted as truth.

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Christopher Columbus Never Set Out to Prove the Earth was Round

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Wrong: Despite a persistent legend, neither Columbus nor his Spanish patrons though Earth was a finite plane instead of a round planet. And you can blame one of the United States' greatest authors for creating a myth that still surrounds one of history's best-known figures.

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Magellan's Role in Proving that the World Was Round

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Magellan's Role in Proving that the World Was Round

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Ferdinand Magellan | Proving The World Is Round | Biography

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Asian and Black history in Britain, 1500-1850. This resource has been archived as the interactive parts no longer work. You can still use the rest of it for information, tasks or research. Please note that it has not been updated since its creation in 2004. Go to Black presence You can find more c…

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This animated map illustrates Magellan's voyage, the first to go around the Earth. He was first expected to get to the Spice Islands by sailing around the Americas.