Children's Timeline of World History

What Happened Between 1450-1500

In the time between 1450 and 1500, all of North and South America, most of Africa, and all of Australia were primarily populated with hunter-gatherer tribes, most of which had tribal societies. These tribes had many religions, worshipping everything from thunder, to toads. These primitive people’s lack of modern weapons made them easy targets for the much more advanced European countries.

The English and Spanish sent thousands of ships and explorers to “civilize” the savage natives of the new world. The English Catholics were fighting engaged in many small civil wars against themselves and the French and Germans. During the time between 1450 and 1500, the country of Spain was finishing up the removal of the Muslims from their country. This exiling of the Muslims and Jews from their country had been going on for the 200 years following the crusades (1100-1300) . After they had removed the Muslims from their country Spain sent the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus to discover a trade rout to India and China because the trade routes of the middle east which they had used for centuries had been cut of by the Ottoman Turks. During this time France and Italy were in the beginning years of the renaissance (1400-1650), and the pope was in command of Europe.

After the crusades, in the 1300’s, the Ottoman Turks had grown from a small band of dessert Bedouins to having gained control of almost all of Asia Minor, and in 1497, they captured the last remains of the shattered Byzantine Empire with the fall of Constantinople. The Chinese and Japanese Buddhists were in a series of bloody wars against the Mongols, a warring people who were one of the most powerful countries in Asia.

The only explorers sent to America in this time period were Columbus in 1492 and Cabot in 1497. If Columbus hadn’t discovered America, we might not be here today.