How Did The Age Of Exploration Celebrate Columbus Day

The Age of Exploration is what causes Americans to now celebrate Columbus Day. The Age of Exploration inspired Christopher Columbus to sail west to find the Northwest Passage and wealth. Although it is believed that Columbus was not the first to make it to the New World his discovery caused massive change. The Age of Exploration sparked by the desire of more successful trade routes and goods set off the momentous, Colombian Exchange which led to the spread of disease and swop of animals as well as crops. The Age of Exploration was initiated by the Europeans because of their desire for luxury goods from Asia and a faster way of getting them. As well as trading their own goods for profit. Europeans valued goods such as spices including pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves. Countries such as England, Spain, and France were seeking a northwest passage to Asia. The passage would be valuable because they hoped it would be faster and it would cut out the middle man, India,

The Columbian Exchange occurred when Columbus arrived in the new world and disease, culture, crops, and animals were traded. This swap caused the great biological exchange. When the Spanish and later English came over to the new world along with crops and animals they also brought disease. Europeans, living among many diseases, had built immunity to the ailment, but since the natives had never been exposed to the illnesses they had no immunity and the disease quickly spread. The Europeans, unintentionally, started an epidemic that would spread throughout the Americas and single handedly kill millions of Natives. Europeans brought diseases such as cholera, malaria, measles, mumps, smallpox, typhoid, and yellow fever to name a few. The only known disease that the Natives probably had was syphilis. Although the Europeans inadvertently shared their diseases they did share other