In its broadest sense, African American history predates the history of the United...

Two thousand and seven seems a...

The Columbian Exchange refers to the flow of goods between the Americas, Europe, and Africa that followed Columbus’s widely advertised “discovery” of the New World. People, animals, plants, and microorganisms passed from continent to continent affecting virtually all aspects of the environment in all three. For American Indians, disease was the most significant aspect of the exchange with as many as 90 percent of the Native population dying out during the first century of colonization. For Africans and Europeans the most important items...

Christopher Columbus was a sailor and navigator (ca. 1454–1514) born in the Republic of Genoa. He embarked early on a naval career and then, at the age of 21, entered a formal apprenticeship as a merchant/trader. Following the writings of the classical geographer Ptolemy, Columbus, like most of his generation, understood that the world was round, but like Ptolemy, Columbus believed that it was much smaller than it actually is. This error suggested to him that it would be possible to sail westward from Europe and arrive in Asia more easily...