We begin the formal lecture part of the class by taking a look at the world as it was around 1500 AD. The year 1500 itself sounds suspiciously round; in fact, it wasn't any big deal at all. But if you wander fifty years before or fifty years afterward you will encounter a great deal of relevant historical development. The last half of the fifteenth century saw the fall of the Byzantine Empire - or, if you prefer, the Eastern Roman Empire. It saw the creation of the Russian Empire (otherwise known as Muscovy), and Columbus's first voyage to the Americas. The first half of the sixteenth century saw the Portuguese discovery of Brazil, the Reformation of the Western Church, and the high point of the Ottoman Empire. The United States of America was not even a gleam in anybody's eye, but its creation and development depended greatly on the events to be discussed in this lecture. So stay tuned!
In segment 02b: The Old World - 1500 AD, we look at the state of the European world before the Age of Discovery. The Byzantine Empire had wheezed to its sad end in 1453. Itself a continuation of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine state was replaced in spirit if not physical form by the rising Russian Empire. Western Europe was likewise in chaos. France and Great Britain had been pummeling each other in the so-called Hundred Years War, which also ended in 1453. France became an absolutist monarchy in which the French king literally was the law. Great Britain had to go through a round of civil wars before resuming its status as a consitutional kingdom. Italy, meanwhile, was so fractured into city-states that it was incapable of any concerted action. The only truly stable nations were Spain and Portugal, which enabled them to search for new markets and new sources of materials in the mysterious Indies.
Segment 02c: The New World - 1500 AD introduces us to life in the Americas before the Europeans arrived. To the south, the mighty empires of the Mayas, Incas, and Aztecs demonstrated that native Americans could and did build magnificent civilizations and massive empires. Had their weaponry been equal, the Spanish conquistadors may well have been sent packing. The simpler lifestyles of North American Indians is more difficult to reconstruct due to the lack of written records and shortage of major monuments. Yet their lives were no less fascinating, as any visitor to the Cahokia Mounds, just across from the river from St. Louis, could tell you. To claim, as the Europeans did, that the indigenous peoples of the Americas were without any culture is absurd.
In segment 02d: Wave of Exploration, Europeans make their way to the New World, also known, thanks to an obscure Italian explorer and his German cartographer pal, as the Americas. The Vikings were the first Europeans to reach North America, as early as 1000 AD. Spain came next, in 1492, followed closely by the Portuguese. At one point, the Pope signed off on a deal splitting the New World between Spain and Portugal. Once they got their domestic matters straightened out in the middle 1500s, the French and British began exploring the Americas. Even the Dutch and Swedish tried to carve out North American empires in modern New York and Delaware, respectively. Eventually Britain, France, and Spain would battle it out for control of North America. Ironically, all three would lose.
