Children's History

The Story of Geographical Discovery: How the World Became Known

Before telling how the ancients got to know that part of the world with which they finally became acquainted when the Roman Empire was at its greatest extent, it is as well to get some idea of the successive stages of their knowledge, leaving for the next chapter the story of...

Chapters

12. Chapter 12

Almost the whole of the explorations which we have hitherto described or referred to had for their motive some practical purpose, whether to reach the Spice Islands or to hunt b...

7. Chapter 7

While the Portuguese had, with slow persistency, devoted nearly a century to carrying out Prince Henry's idea of reaching the Indies by the eastward route, a bold yet simple ide...

3. Chapter 3

We have seen how, by a slow process of conquest and expansion, the ancient world got to know a large part of the Eastern Hemisphere, and how this knowledge was summed up in the...

11. Chapter 11

We have seen how the Portuguese had slowly coasted along the shore of Africa during the fifteeenth century in search of a way to the Indies. By the end of the century mariners _...

1. Chapter 1

Before telling how the ancients got to know that part of the world with which they finally became acquainted when the Roman Empire was at its greatest extent, it is as well to g...

6. Chapter 6

Up to the fifteenth century the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula were chiefly occupied in slowly moving back the tide of Mohammedan conquest, which had spread nearly through...

10. Chapter 10

If one looks at the west coast of Australia one is struck by the large number of Dutch names which are jotted down the coast. There is Hoog Island, Diemen's Bay, Houtman's Abrol...

9. Chapter 9

We have hitherto been dealing with the discoveries made by Spanish and Portuguese along the coast of the New World, but early in the sixteenth century they began to put foot on...

4. Chapter 4

In the Middle Ages--that is, in the thousand years between the irruption of the barbarians into the Roman Empire in the fifth century and the discovery of the New World in the f...

5. Chapter 5

We have now conducted the course of our inquiries through ancient times and the Middle Ages up to the very eve of the great discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,...

2. Chapter 2

In a companion volume of this series, "The Story of Extinct Civilisations in the East," will be found an account of the rise and development of the various nations who held sway...

8. Chapter 8

The discovery of the New World had the most important consequences on the relative importance of the different nations of Europe. Hitherto the chief centres for over two thousan...