World History Practice Test: The Age of Exploration

Spices and silk passed through many middlemen, which made them very costly in Europe. A direct sea route promised large profits.

Prince Henry backed many Portuguese expeditions in the early 1400s. He did not sail on the long voyages himself.

Rounding the Cape of Good Hope opened the way to the Indian Ocean. Cape Horn is at the southern tip of South America.

Vasco da Gama reached Calicut in 1498, opening a sea route for Portuguese trade. Columbus sailed west and reached the Caribbean, not India.

After Portugal declined, the Spanish rulers agreed to fund Columbus. Henry VII sponsored John Cabot a few years later.

The treaty drew a line through the Atlantic: lands to the west went to Spain, to the east to Portugal. That is one reason Brazil became Portuguese.

Magellan led the voyage but was killed in the Philippines in 1521. Elcano took command and brought the last ship back to Spain.

Cortés allied with peoples who opposed the Aztecs, and smallpox weakened the city. Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire in South America.

The Columbian Exchange was the transfer of plants, animals and diseases between the Americas and the Eastern Hemisphere after 1492. Coffee actually originated in Ethiopia, and cattle came from Europe.

Mercantilists believed a nation grew rich by exporting more than it imported and collecting gold and silver. Colonies were expected to serve that goal, not to trade freely.