Deck 5: Discovering New Worlds

Question 1

The two primary motivations behind European voyages of exploration were ________ and ________.

A) gold; slaves
B) religion; profit
C) curiosity; the Crusades
D) imperialism; spices
E) land; beaver pelts

Answer 1

B

Question 2

During the later medieval period, trade in luxury goods from Asia and the Ottomans was dominated by ________ merchants.

A) Venetian
B) Byzantine
C) Genoese
D) Spanish
E) Dutch

Answer 2

A

Question 3

With the ________ in 1493, Pope Alexander VI drew a line down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and ruled that Portugal had exclusive rights to the lands east of the line and Castile had exclusive rights to the lands west of the line.

A) Treaty of Versailles
B) Treaty of the New World
C) Treaty of Columbus
D) Treaty of Tordesillas
E) Treaty of Rome

Answer 3

D

Question 4

The most catastrophic component of the Columbian Exchange was ________.

A) warfare
B) syphilis
C) smallpox
D) tobacco
E) malaria

Question 5

In sailing west on the Atlantic, Christopher Columbus was hoping to find ________.

A) proof that the earth was round
B) Prester John
C) a westward route to Asia
D) further territory for Ferdinand and Isabella
E) the New World

Question 6

Two scientific fields that witnessed the most dramatic changes during the early modern period were ________ and ________.

A) chemistry; alchemy
B) astronomy; physics
C) biology; medicine
D) astrology; astrophysics
E) geology; mathematics

Question 7

According to Greek medical authorities, good health was dependent on ________.

A) diet and exercise
B) the body's chemical structure
C) cleanliness and the absence of germs
D) the balance of bodily humours
E) purity of blood and bile

Question 8

Sir Isaac Newton was one of the most brilliant minds of the early modern era. His supreme achievement was ________.

A) his collaborative efforts at inventing calculus with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
B) the calculation of the date of the Apocalypse
C) the discovery of gravity
D) finally proving that Copernicus' heliocentric universe was the correct model
E) the synthesis of a system that went beyond describing motion to explaining it

Question 9

Copernicus proposed a heliocentric model of the universe because ________.

A) placing the sun in the centre made the universe mathematically simpler
B) he wanted to challenge traditional Aristotelian viewpoints
C) his astronomical observations indicated that the sun was the centre of the universe
D) he believed in Ptolemy's system of epicycles
E) he was convinced by Kepler's laws of planetary motion

Question 10

________ was the founder of modern anatomy and one of the first individuals to question the medical wisdom of ancient authorities.

A) Galen
B) William Harvey
C) Robert Boyle
D) Andreas Vesalius
E) Paracelsus

Question 11

Since Europeans had no commodities that Asians wanted, Europeans had to buy Asian luxury goods with gold and silver.

Question 12

Although technological developments were important, the early Atlantic voyages were aided more by the steady accumulation of practical knowledge that sailors accumulated than by technological innovation.

Question 13

The colonization of the Canary Islands, Madeira, the Azores, and the Cape Verde Islands helped prepare the Portuguese and Castilian explorers for further overseas expansion.

Question 14

By the time of his third voyage in 1502, Columbus acknowledged that he had not reached Asia.

Question 15

With some exceptions, Portugal's overseas possessions were part of a "trading-post empire."

Question 16

During the seventeenth century, the English East India Company successfully challenged the Dutch East India Company (the VOC) and became the dominant European player in Asian trade.

Question 17

Permanent European settlements in Newfoundland and New France were necessary for the success of the fisheries and the fur trade.

Question 18

European expansion into the New World was driven by large-scale plans of colonization and settlement.

Question 19

Missionary activity played a significant role in Catholic voyages and exploration, but not in Protestant voyages and exploration.

Question 20

Within the Columbian Exchange, the turkey was the most notable introduction from the New World to the Old World.

Question 21

In placing the sun at the centre of the universe, Copernicus was deliberately setting out to challenge and overthrow the old system of astrology based on Aristotle and Ptolemy.

Question 22

Galileo is rightly credited as the father of the new "experimental method."

Question 23

Sir Isaac Newton's synthesis of ideas in his Principia was not immediately accepted because he could not explain how gravity worked.

Question 24

The increased emphasis on experimentation in the Scientific Revolution was an attempt for educated Europeans to find certainty following the challenges to ancient authorities raised during the same period.

Question 25

In his famous work, Pensées, Blaise Pascal attempted to convince people that science and faith could not be reconciled.

Question 26

The Scientific Revolution refers to a period where scientists, committed to the truth, managed to triumph over the ignorance and superstition of medieval pseudoscience.

Question 27

Tycho Brahe's years of astronomical observation were inspired by the appearance of a new supernova and comet, as well as a desire to cast more accurate horoscopes.

Question 28

In contrast to Sir Francis Bacon's inductive and empirical method, René Descartes' novel approach to knowledge was based on deductive reasoning.

Question 29

The Swiss physician Paracelsus' argument that illness was caused by external agents was a radical challenge to the prevailing medical theory of humours.

Question 30

Key figures in the Scientific Revolution such as Sir Isaac Newton, Galileo, and Copernicus were devoted atheists.

Question 31

What was the Columbian Exchange?

Question 32

Why was the introduction of smallpox so catastrophic for Indigenous populations?

Question 33

How did Europeans attempt to justify their seizure of Indigenous peoples' land?

Question 34

Why is sugar significant?

Question 35

What role did the Jesuits play in European exploration and expansion?

Question 36

How have new theories and approaches changed how historians understand contact between Europeans and Indigenous populations?

Question 37

What was a trading-post empire?

Question 38

What drove the European colonization of North America?

Question 39

Was Columbus a success or a failure?

Question 40

How did Prince Henry the Navigator drive the early voyages of exploration?

Question 41

What were the technical improvements in shipbuilding and navigation that facilitated the European voyages of exploration?

Question 42

What motivated European explorers?

Question 43

What was the mechanical philosophy?

Question 44

How did Sir Francis Bacon and René Descartes argue that one should approach the quest for knowledge of the natural world?

Question 45

What was the Newtonian synthesis?

Question 46

Why was Galileo charged with heresy?

Question 47

What factors drove Copernicus to place the sun at the centre of the universe and propose a heliocentric universe?

Question 48

What sorts of misconceptions hinder our understanding of the Scientific Revolution?

Question 49

What changes occurred in medicine during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?

Question 50

What were Johannes Kepler's three laws of planetary motion?

Question 51

What role did religion and profit play in European exploration and colonization?

Question 52

What was new about the new worlds of the early modern period?

Question 53

How did the efforts of individual explorers contribute to the European voyages of discovery?

Question 54

What were the consequences of European exploration?

Question 55

Using he Valladolid Debate as an example, discuss how Europeans viewed the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Question 56

This period is characterized as an age of discovery. What was discovered in the early modern period?

Question 57

Was science opposed to religion?

Question 58

In his book The Scientific Revolution, Steven Shapin explains, "There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, and this is a book about it." Was there a Scientific Revolution in the early modern period?

Question 59

The fields of astronomy and physics witnessed an unraveling of the old system. How was the old system of understanding the universe unraveled?

Question 60

How did people attempt to achieve certainty following Scientific Revolution?