16th Century Timelines
Episode Six: Century of the
Compass (1500-1600)
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999
/millennium/learning/timelines/
16th Century Segments
Mexico
Russia
Japan
India
Europe
The Beginning of a Modern Era
The 16th century established the
beginning of the Modern Era. For the
first time in human history water routes
linked the seacoasts of the world. This
was to have enormous consequences in
human history. The center of European
trade shifted from the Mediterranean to
the Atlantic basin. Lisbon replaced
Venice.
16th Century World
In the 16th century the world became
an arena of competition between
aggressively expanding empires and
fiercely evangelical religions. New
empires were created across oceans
and continents by dynamic
civilizations determined to influence
cultures very different from their own.
In this Episode, European maritime
imperialism is set in the context of
Russian, Chinese, and Japanese
empire-building. The reach of global
imperialism is evoked through the
content of a cabinet of curiosities. The
compass was a technology that made
these ambitions possible.
An all-ocean route from Portugal
around Africa to India linked the
Atlantic ports of Europe and Africa
with the markets of India, the Indian
Ocean basin, and East Asia. Global
trade began when the first Spanish
galleon from Acapulco reached the
Philippines in 1571 with a load of
American silver to be swapped for
Chinese products like silk and
porcelain.
Chinese merchants in Manila traded with
the Spanish to meet the growing demand
for silver coins at home. The result of
this expanding trade was the worldwide
exchange of people, ideas, technology,
foods, and diseases.
World Trade
This increasing volume of world trade
began to change the lives of ordinary
people. The discovery of trade winds
and ocean currents led to the mapping of
dependable water routes. Europeans
gradually shed their narrow, medieval
views of the world. The Portuguese
sailed a bit too far west of Africa and
discovered Brazil in 1500.
Their search for mythical Christian
kingdom of Prester John also led them
to Ethiopia, where the ruler placed an
order for Portuguese guns. Around the
world people were being confronted
with new things. American chili
peppers came to India; tulips, to
Holland; horses, to the Americas;
guns, to Japan.
New American crops like maize
(corn) and potatoes kept hungry
peasants in Africa, China, and
Europe from starvation.
Peoples in Contact
Many peoples came in contact with
each other for the first time. The
French writer Michel Montaigne
recorded impressions of American
Indians visiting France sometime
between 1570 and 1574.
After encountering the young French
king, Charles, these visitors ". . .
thought it very strange that so many
grown men, bearded, strong, and
armed, who were around the king
should. . . obey a child, and that one of
them was not chosen to command
instead."
The American Indians also observed
that "among [the French were] men full
and gorged with all sorts of good
things, and their other halves were
beggars at their doors, emaciated with
hunger and poverty. . . they thought it
strange that these needy halves could
endure such an injustice, and did not
take the others by the throat, or set fire
to their houses."
New Religions
Peoples flocked to new religions. Islam,
immensely popular through the
teachings of the Sufis, gained new
converts in ports and along the trade
routes inland from the Indian Ocean,
although the divisions between Shiite
and Sunni remained.
Hinduism receded as Buddhism gained
support among the peoples living in the
river valleys of Southeast Asia. China
revived its ancient Confucian traditions
when the Ming court and local gentry
adopted conservative, Neoconfucian
teachings and values. Some Indians began
following a different path altogether, as
turbaned Sikhs combined aspects of Islam
and Hinduism into a new religious synthesis.
In contrast, Christians in Europe split
between Catholics and Protestants.
Europeans became embroiled in bitter
religious controversies that would lead
to many wars. Christians were less
successful in their missionary efforts in
Asia and Africa than in the Americas,
where the Spanish successfully
converted many conquered peoples.
Next, African slaves were also
introduced to Christianity on the New
World plantations. Then Catholic
monks traveled inland to convert
native populations. Half a world away,
the first Dali Lama was recognized by
his followers in the late 1500's. Tibetan
Buddhist monks traveled to Mongolia
to convert the Mongols in mass.
Global Technology
By 1500, Europeans had the
technological advantage in ship design,
mining, metallurgy and gunpowder
weapons. Caravels were floating
fortresses. These ships could withstand
the recoil of heavy cannon fired from
the deck and yet were agile and durable
in the water.
The Portuguese established a lucrative
trade in gold and slaves with the west
coast of Africa. In 1488 they reached the
Cape of Good Hope. By 1498 Vasco da
Gama had sailed all the way to India with
the help of a Muslim pilot. Columbus
used the same navigational technology to
sail west from Spain in 1492. These
expeditions ushered in an age of European
exploration and expansion.
Conclusion
As the century closed, a Japanese
invasion of Korea failed. Japan and
Korea were to become increasingly
isolated in the years to follow as trade
moved to the South China Sea. Although
land routes like the Silk Road continued
to link regional markets, sea routes and
ports were tied to an expanding network
of global trade.
Muslim rulers established land based
empires in Ottoman Turkey, Safavid
Iran, and Moghul India with the support
of large standing armies, a sophisticated
bureaucracy, and gunpowder weapons.
By the end of this first modern century,
Spain and Portugal had established
European colonial empires.
Sixteen Century People
Akbar 1542 – 1605
Tolerant and wise, Akbar was the
greatest of India's Mogul emperors. This
Muslim leader realized that India's
Hindus were too powerful to subjugate.
During his 50 years of rule he
allowed the princes to keep their
lands in return for allegiance. He
offered their subjects jobs and
religious freedom.
He fostered architecture that
melded Mogul and Hindu
traditions, culminating in 1650 in
the Taj Mahal, which was the
vision of Akbar's grandson Shah
Jahan.
Vasco Da Gama 1460 –
1524
His mission for Portugal was to
break up the Muslim, Venetian and
Genoese monopolies that controlled
the lucrative trade route between
Europe and Asia.
His most memorable success
came on his first voyage, in 1497,
when Vasco da Gama rounded
Africa's Cape of Good Hope and
sailed to India, opening an allwater route from Europe to Asia.
Suleyman 1494 – 1566
The reign of sultan Suleyman (1520-66)
marks the apogee of political, economic, and
cultural development under the Ottomans.
Known in English as "the Magnificent"
because of the splendors of his court, he is
usually known in Turkish as kanuni, or "lawgiver," because he issued laws that
harmonized traditional Islamic and Ottoman
legal codes.
His given name, the Arabic and Turkish
form of Solomon, encouraged the sultan
to consider himself a worthy successor
to his namesake, the biblical king in the
Koran and Muslim lore. One of the
sultan's many architectural projects was
the refurbishment of the Dome of the
Rock in Jerusalem, which was believed
to stand on the site of the Jewish temple
built by King Solomon.
Nicolaus Copernicus 1473 –
1543
The Earth was the fixed center of the
universe until Polish astronomer
Nicolaus Copernicus ventured the
idea that the sun is the center of the
solar system, with the Earth and the
planets revolving around it.
He was a a cautious, one might say a
wise, man -- at a time when heretics
were put to death. Copernicus didn't
publish On the Revolutions of the
Celestial Spheres, which
revolutionized our concept of the
world, until 1543, when he was on
his deathbed.
Martin Luther 1483 – 1546
When Martin Luther nailed his 95
Theses to the door of a Wittenberg,
Germany, church in 1517 "for the
purpose of eliciting truth," he began
the Reformation that transformed
political and religious alliances for
centuries.
His early works stressed salvation
by God's grace and Christian
spirituality. He argued against papal
authority in affairs of state, and
when he refused to recant, was
excommunicated by the Catholic
Church -- an act that gave rise to all
Protestant churches.
John Calvin 1509 – 1564,
French-born theologian John
Calvin was a significant figure of
the Reformation and trained
ministers who spread Protestant
faith through Europe and Puritan
New England.
His teachings shaped 16th
century political and social
customs and influence theology
to this day. Thus was born the
Calvinist movement, which
included the concept of an
elected, representative church
government.
Hernan Cortes 1485 –
1547
Eager for fame and riches,
Hernán Cortés set out in 1519
for Mexico, where gold was
said to be abundant.
Exploiting local resentment
against the Aztecs, who used
prisoners of war for human
sacrifice, Cortés negotiated
alliances as he headed toward
Tenochtitlàn, seat of the Aztec
emperor Montezuma.
Returning in 1521, Cortés
laid siege to Tenochtitlàn,
destroying the Aztecs' most
splendid jewel and planting
seeds of domination that
would grow for the next three
centuries.
Elizabeth I 1533 – 1603
Elizabeth ascended the throne of
England in 1558. A supremely skilled
diplomat, the Virgin Queen -- she never
married -- fended off suitors as cleverly
as she manipulated foreign negotiators
and domestic factions.
She was pragmatic: Although
she disliked waging war, she
built up England's navy and in
1588 defeated Spain's Armada,
not only staving off invasion but
laying the basis for empire.
She was visionary: She supported
Shakespeare, the poet Edmund
Spenser and Walter Raleigh, who
dispatched settlers to Virginia, a
colony named in her honor. The
Elizabethan era: a 45-year span
of stability, growth and dazzling
achievement.
16th Century Legacies
Shipping lanes linked the seaports of the world.
This was an era of cross cultural contact and biological exchange.
Religious conversions and schisms in the Americas, the Indian
Ocean Basin, China, Europe, and India during this period continue
to shape present cultural landscapes.
Exchange led to the spread of infectious diseases and massive
loss of life in the Americas.
Peoples of the Americas would be of African, indigenous American
and European origins.