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European Discovery & Conquest of the Spice Islands
Clove, nutmeg, and mace are native to only a handful of tiny islands in the middle of the vast Indonesian archipelago – cloves on five Maluku Islands (the Moluccas) about 1250 km (778 mi) west of New Guinea, and nutmeg on the ten Banda Islands...
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The Portuguese Colonization of Cape Verde
The Portuguese colonization of the Cape Verde (Cabo Verde) Islands began from 1462. Initially envisaged as a base to give mariners direct access to West African trade, the Central Atlantic islands soon became a major hub of the Atlantic slave...
Article
Travel in the Ancient Greek World
Travel opportunities within the ancient Greek world largely depended on status and profession; nevertheless, a significant proportion of the population could, and did, travel across the Mediterranean to sell their wares, skills, go on religious...
Definition
Greek Astronomy
Ancient Greek astronomy was the study of the universe to understand how it functioned and why apart from the established theistic model that claimed all things were ordered and maintained by the gods. Ancient Greek astronomers relied on observation...
Article
The Portuguese Colonization of São Tomé and Principe
São Tomé and Principe are islands located in the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa. They were uninhabited before being colonised by the Portuguese from 1486. So involved were they with the slave trade, they became known as the Slave Islands where...
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Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan, or Fernão de Magalhães (c. 1480-1521), was a Portuguese mariner whose expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe in 1519-22 in the service of Spain. Magellan was killed on the voyage in what is today the Philippines...
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Polynesian Navigation & Settlement of the Pacific
Polynesian navigation of the Pacific Ocean and its settlement began thousands of years ago. The inhabitants of the Pacific islands had been voyaging across vast expanses of ocean water sailing in double canoes or outriggers using nothing...
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The Planet Uranus
This is an image of the planet Uranus taken by the spacecraft Voyager 2 in 1986. The Voyager project is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire was established from the 15th century and eventually stretched from the Americas to Japan. Very often a string of coastal trading centres with defensive fortifications, there were larger territorial colonies like Brazil...
Article
Ancient Cyprus: A Travel Guide
Lying at the crossroads of the eastern Mediterranean, the island of Cyprus has long been a meeting point for many of the world's great civilizations. Situated where Europe, Asia and Africa meet, its location shaped its history of bringing...