o1488 and 1495 was a period of dynastic struggles and domestic problems, Portugal experienced a lull in exploration and the Spanish rulers took advantage of this critical prospect.

o Lorenzo's death encouraged charles the 8th of France to march into the peninsula, ushering two generations of struggle in Italy between the Spanish and the French. It ended with years in Spanish domination, giving Spain right to use to Italian wealth and control over the papacy.

o Additional countries dominated the north and Eastern Europe in 1492. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway were united in the Kolmar union under sten sture 1, the elder. The decedents of these European presents would not recover their sovereignty for centuries.

oThe ottoman sultan bayezid 2's, vast Muslim domains stretched across North Africa, from Persia to Serbia and the southern Ukraine. Christianity city of Constantinople had ended the Byzantine Empire the last of the ancient Roman Empire. According to a poet it was the largest metropolis in the Mediterranean basin, its population 100,000 in 1492 and would rise to 700,000 a century later.

o By the beginning of 1492 Turks and other Islamic people dominated a great land from the south of Spain across North Africa and down into Africa as Mozambique. After the first Muslims spread into the holy land and Persia from Arabia, they extended their domain from India through south Asia and penetrated into china and the Philippines. Islam became the only religion established throughout the length of the ecumene.

oIn1492 most of India was under Muslim domination, except for the Hindu kingdom of vijayangar in the south. This next wave of invaders, the mughals, had a government that was to be the envy of contemporary European rulers.

oThe liberal religious policy was two hundred year in advance of the later enlightened society of the west.

oChina was under the paternal rule most venerated of its Ming emperors, xiao-zong. In 1492 the emperor was locked in a struggle with the Confucian bureaucracy. In the eyes of the governing elite, he relied on a foreign-born minister and favored his wife's relatives too much.

o Earlier Zheng he expeditions, which had traversed the Indian Ocean from 1405 to1433. These expeditions involved about 62 ships and 32,000 troops, contacted 30 centuries and reached as far as the east coast of Africa.

oThe Confucian bureaucrats made sure that naval exploration would not be resumed. They were successful because china lacked several of the elements that encouraged European naval ventures. Commanders were expected to focus on the threat from the north and the rulers spend most of the money building the great wall that was the most important thing at the time.

oThe obliteration of the Mayan culture prevents us from education of their society’s undertakings.oThey had one of the most imaginative and superior societies of the world.oThey based their calendar on the astronomical annotations.

oThey expanded and were a great achievement in just about thirty years.oThe empires came together by 7,000 miles of roads. The roads were used to send massages to other empires; they would travel up to 150 miles per day.

oBy the 1492 the planet had already reached the end of the long warming trend that had encouraged the exploration half a millennium before.o Expanded resources were beginning to strain under the weight of multiplying populations. Fully 70% of humanity depends upon 7% of lams being farmed.

70%

7% Column1

humanity

depending on farming

oThere were four forms of civilization flourished in the broad landmass of Eurasia. Islam continually expanded its boundaries by creating a succession of gunpowder empires; the Hindu population of south Asia relied upon its increasingly elaborate caste structure for stability during the subsequent years of mughal decline, and china focusing on familial form of governmental organization.

o It alone among the four societies developed a tradition of self-governing mercantile urban republics. All four great centers of civilization had elaborate bureaucratic structures, significant cities, iron implements, writing, and high technology.

oThese characteristics created stable societies; even if other try to over throw them it would be hard to do so. The effective firearms and improved fortifications would eventually stop the movement of the nomads.

o Complex civilizations have developed in a half dozen places-Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Indus valley, china, Mesoamerica, and Andes. The longer cultures survive, the more technology is developed, passed and perfected.

oThe earliest drawings of guns are dated from the 1326 in Europe and from china in 1332. This shows rapid transmission of the innovation, where it was first invented.

Evolution of gun technology