1. Mid-Term

2.  According toWikipedia “Big History is a field of
historical study that examines history on a large
scale across long time frames through a multi-
disciplinary approach and gives focus on the
alteration and adaptations in the huma
 “Human societies and individuals explain and
justify and validate themselves by presenting
history in the forms of national sagas, poems,
news reports, drama, folksongs, speeches,
paintings, documentaries, seminars, books,
posters, monuments, or genealogies.Whether
they are true or false”n experience.”

3.  While Columbus was sailing ships, Caribbean
Tainos were using canoes to hop from island to
island. Polynesians were navigating catamarans
across the Pacific, and Arabian cargo ships sailed
in the Indian Ocean. Imperial couriers traveled
the GreatWall of China on horseback, while Inca
runners made their way along the Highway of
the Sun in Peru.
 Ferdinand Magellan was able to circumnavigate
the globe and demonstrated that ships were
able to sail from one body of water to the next in
a continuous passage.

4.  Many empires we’re exploring lands across the sea’s,
such as the Portuguese voyages to Africa. Henry “The
Navigator” hoped to discover new lands for crusades,
and by 1497 they had established a secure base in
West Africa.
 A historic Indian voyage was that ofVasco da Gama
and his fleet of four ships that rounded the Cape of
Good Hope and sailed into the Indian Ocean.
 This opened up new trade routes that enabled
empires to gain resources from outside their
community. In having more resources the empires
were able to explore neighboring lands and conquer
the less powerful regions.

5.  It brought new diseases to the Americas to
which no natives had immunity, and it
depopulated many civilizations. It is estimated
to have decreased 50-90 percent of the
population in the Americas.
 The positive side to it is crops and livestock.The
exchange enabled explorers to return with many
important crops such as potatoes, sugar,
tomatoes, peanuts, spices, and silks.
 Mocca is Not Chocolate
▪ Jean de la Roque sailed around Africa and into the Red Sea
with one purpose: a way to purchase coffee directly.

6.  Pagden says, “Empires, it is assumed, are in
some sense artificial creations.They are created
by conquest, and conquerors have always
attempted to keep those they have conquered in
subservience. This has been achieved by a
mixture of simple force and some kind of
ideology”
 “The war machine, the capacity to transform a
large body of men into a single instrument of
destruction, was to prove decisive in what has
come to be called the ‘triumph of the west.’”