Period 4: Global Interaction: 1450 To 1750

The Age of Exploration

With the big, post-classical, empires falling and as a result of The Crusades, Europe finally looks good. Don't missunderstand, Europe doesn't rise to power, but merely fills the power void being left by China, and the Arab world.

This time period is significant because it is the first time period in which the Eastern and Western hemispheres worked as one economically.

With the power void open, Portugal was the first to try to take hold and control it. In Portugal there was a School of Navigation, run by Prince Henry. Portugal had quite the amount of feats before losing control on the reins of the world. Bartolomeu Dias found the Cape of Good Hope, then Vasco de Gama found the route from Portugal to the East, which all of Europe had been pining for because of the Ottoman block of the over land route.Portugal was also the world's first Trade Post Empire. That means that instead of looking to conquer land, they sought to obtain allies and trading partners. They occasionally did conquer the trading posts they knew they could get. This was all for money aka taxes.