Answer:Chapter 2
Section 1: Europeans Set Sail
Viking Sailors Reach North America
The Vikingswere the first Europeans to make contact with North America. They came
from Scandinavia, a peninsula that includes the presentday countries of Denmark,
Norway, and Sweden. The Vikings were skilled sailors who developed a new style of
ship, called the longship, that curved up at both ends. Viking vessels traveled the rough
North Atlantic seas better than earlier Ships because their designs were more stable.
The Vikings raided countries throughout Europe, but they also developed large trading
networks. Viking ships sailed to the British Isles and the Mediterranean and Black seas.
Eventually, the Vikings sailed west into the North Atlantic. There they founded a
settlement on the Island of Icelandin about 874. More than 100 years later, Viking Erik
the Redleft Iceland to settle Greenland.
Leif Eriksson, the son of Erik the Red, shared his father's love of adventure. In the
year 1000, he was sailing from west Norway to Greenland when strong winds blew his
ship off course and carried his ship all the way to the North American coast.
Eriksson and his crew landed on the Labrador Peninsula in presentday Canada. The
Vikings then sailed further south to the island of Newfoundland, and perhaps to what is
now New England. According to their myths, Vikings saw forests, meadows, and rivers
that held "larger salmon then they had ever seen."
Eriksson settled in a coastal area he called Vinland, but the Vikings left after only
a few years. Attacks by Native Americans posed a constant threat, and the area may
have been too far from other Viking settlements to be supported.
After the Vikings left North America, Europeans did not return to the continent for
centuries. In the 1400s, however, a growing interest in discovery and exploration
spread across Europe.
Prince Henry the Navigator
In the early 1400s Portugalbecame a leader in world exploration. One man in
particular, Prince Henry the Navigator, was responsible of advances that would make
exploration more successful. Although he never set out on a voyage himself, Henry
greatly advanced Portugal’s exploration efforts.
In the early 1400’s, Prince Henry built an observatory and founded a school of
navigation to teach better methods of sailing. He also financed research by mapmakers
and shipbuilders. Finally, he paid for exhibitions to explore the west coast of Africa.
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