In 1492, Christopher Columbus led a Spanish-sponsored expedition across the Atlantic, making landfall in the Caribbean while searching for a westward route to Asia. The voyage opened sustained contact between Europe and the Americas, setting in motion centuries of transatlantic exchange, conquest, and colonization. It did not reach Asia, but it redirected Spanish and later other European trade and territorial ambitions toward the Western Hemisphere.
Relevance to Trade History
Marks the beginning of sustained European-American contact and the trade and colonial networks that followed.
Read the full story in our article The Columbian Exchange and Its Global Consequences.
Source: Library of Congress. See our Sources & Methodology page for how we select and verify references.