The Fall of Constaninople

In 1453 the siege of Constantinople the capital of the Byzantine empire and one of the most heavily fortified city fell, led by Sultan Mehmed ll ruler of the Ottoman Turks.

3 Causes

-The Byzantine army was reduced to 7,000 soldiers with 50,000 citizens as most of the population was wiped out by the black plague.

-Constantinople followed religion of the Eastern orthodox teachings instead of the Holy Roman Church. The church fell on deaf ears and sent reinforcements too late.

-Byzantines were arrogant depending on the walls surrounding the city to hold off enemies, protected from the sea and land invaders.

3 Effects

-Affected the start of the Renaissance. Many Greek scholars fled to Italy and were welcomed.

-The Black Sea trade crashed and started a monopoly for trade affected European and Italy trade.

-Mediterranean and Black Sea turned into Turkish lakes for trades beneficial for ottomans but not for former trade partners.

1480 Portuguese Explore West Coast of Africa

Access to commodities such as fabrics, spices and gold motivated a European quest for South Asia. That search led the Portuguese down the coast of West Africa to Sierra Leone in 1460.

3 Causes

-Portugal's extended contact with Islam and therefore with its superior mathematical knowledge and sailing technologies including sail shapes resulted in a capable fleet over the Atlantic Sea.

-Portugal had a strong national identity, allowing the pooling of the considerable economic resources necessary to fund exploration.

-The Black Plague had no effect on Portugal due to their physical isolation.

3 Effects

-Portuguese had an ambiguous relationship with their African trading partners, disembarking at cities.

-Preserved maps from this period were created and was an accurate showing of the complicated coastline.

-Slave trade grew in the 1600;s from Africa. 175,000 slaves were taken t Europe and the America's.

Printing Press invented in 1440's

Invented by Johannes Gutenburg. He used tin, anatomy and aluminum to make a durable alloy which he shaped into letters. He used inspiration from an olive press to develop a system for movable type.

3 Causes

-Some handwriting books had incorrect punctuation, spelling and grammatical errors inspiring the invention.

-It would take too long to create a book being handwritten and copied over and over by scribes.

-Stories and information was changed through time being handwritten all over again.

3 Effects

-Books being cheap allowed the middle class to buy them in large numbers to obtain knowledge.

-Knowledge became more accessible as it was stored in books. Scholars no longer depended on churches to read their documents.

-People began to record their discoveries and publish them for future generation benefit.