Amanda, Hannah & MayMay's notes on 'Don't Know Much About History'

• In 1492 Columbus sort of discovered America
• August 3rd 1492  Columbus sailed out of Spain with three ships
• Nina 
• Pinta
• Santa Maria
• October 12 the crew threatened to mutiny aboard the Pinta when a lookout named Rodrigo sighted moonlight shimmering on some cliffs or sand
• Columbus took credit for see land because the first man to see land was promised a large reward
• The only gold he found was in the natives' earrings
• The only spice he found was tobacco
• Tobacco was brought to Spain in 1555
• Columbus's need for gold drove him to enslave the natives
• Marco Polo's journey to China and back started the fever for adventure, riches and spices
• Leif Eriksson reached America and established a colony around 1000 A.D.
• Vinland in present-day Newfoundland
• Bjarni Herjolfsson was the first European to see North America in 985 or 986
• Thorfinn Karlsefni set up housekeeping in Eriksson's spot
• He also faced troubles with the local Eskimos
• Some people think the Irish sailed to America in the 9th or 10th century
• No proof!
• Other myths...
• A Welshman Modoc established a colony and taught the local Indians to speak Welsh
• The Oriental people sailed to the coast of California
• Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot)
• 1496 he sailed for the British to try and find a trade route to Asia
• 1498 Cabot disappeared with four ships
• Juan Ponce de Leon
• first European to set foot on what would become the United States
• He was searching for the fountain of youth, but found and named Florida instead
• He also found Mexico on this voyage
• Giovanni de Verrazano was employed by the French and he was searching for a strait through the new world that would take him west ward to the Orient. 
• He reach land at Cape fear in the Carolinas 
• He sailed up the Atlantic coat until he found Newfoundland and then returned to France. 
• People arrived in America 30-40 thousand years ago. 
• People came over from Russia over the land bridge to Alaska 
• Seeking warmer climate they moved south killing the mammoth along the way. 
• When Columbus arrived there were millions of first Americans
• They were divided into hundreds of tribal societies the most advanced being the Mayas. Aztecs and Incas 
• Columbus and the other European explorers killed off a large percentage of the natives. 
• Amerigo Vespucci and Alonso de Hojeda sailed to south America in 1499 and reach the mouth of the Amazon. 
• Had the English not defeated the Spanish Armada they would never have come over to the new world and aided in the discovery of America. 
• 1499 Amerigo Vespucci sailed for South America and landed in the Amazon. 
• 1513 Ponce de Leon searching for the fountain of youth, finds and names Florida. 
• 1531 Pizarro invades Peru and conquers the Incas. 
• Sebastian Cabot 
• 1553 he organized a expedition to find a way over the top of Russia (North East passage) 
• 1576 Sir Humphrey Gilbert first used the phrase North West passage when describing a sea route around North America. 
• 1578 Martin Frobisher reached the North East coast of Canada. 
• 1609 Henry Hudson went on the voyage in which he discovered the bay, river, and strait later named after him. 
• 1585 Sir Walter Raleigh tried to establish a colony on a Roanoke island. 
• 1586 Sir Francis Drake found the colonist hungry and went back to England to fetch supplies. 
• Raleigh sent a group of 107 men women and children to Roanoke.
• 1590 Raleigh returned to Roanoke and no one was there. 
• 1605 Two groups of merchant formed the joint stock company and petitioned King James I. for the right to colonize Virginia 
• The Virginia company of London was given southern Virginia 
• Plymouth company got northern Virginia 
• They were looking for gold silver and copper 
• December 20, 1607, 104 colonists left England under Caption John New Port and reached Chesapeake Bay in may, 1607 and founded Jamestown. 
• Caption John Smith joined Bartholomew Gosnold in 1605 to venture into Virginia. 
• John Rolfe married Pocahontas which created peace between the Natives and Jamestown
• In 1612 Rolfe crossed Virginia tobacco with a seed from a milder Jamaican leaf
• House of Burgesses first met in 1619
• Burgess
• a person invested with all the French bourgeois
•  In 1619 a shipload of women were sent to the New World to be sold as wives for the settlers
• They sold for 120 pounds of tobacco
• In 1619, 20 African slaves first came to Jamestown
• 1620, the pilgrims arrive in Plymouth via the Mayflower
• Mayflower Compact
• The first written constitution in North America
• Squanto saved the settlers from starvation in the following spring after their arrival
• Samoset helped the Pilgrims make peace with Massasoit and the Wampanoags
• 1630 john Winthrop establishes Massachuesets
• 1634, 200 settlers arrive at Chesepeake Bay and found St. Mary's in Maryland
• 1636 Reverend Thomas Hooker leads a group to conneticut
• 1636 Roger Williams is banished from Massachusetts and establishes Rhode Island
• The Dutch founded New Netherland in the Hudson Valley
• 1626 Dutch established the city of New Amsterdam (later New York) 
• 1664 English took New Amsterdam from the Dutch
• It was renamed New York after its new owner, the Duke of York
• Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in 1608
• 1682 William Penn founded Pennsylvania
• founded to be a safe haven for the Quakers to worship
• Pennsylvania also permitted religious tolerance for all
• 1607 Virginia (Jamestown
• 1620/1630 Massachusetts (Plymouth was founded in 1620. Massacusetts as a whole was founded in 1630
• 1626 New York
• 1633 Maryland
• 1636 Rhode Island
• 1636 Conneticut
• 1638 Delaware
• 1638 New Hampshire
• 1653 North Carolina
• 1663 South Carolina
• 1664 New Jersey
• 1682 Pennsylvania
• 1732 Georgia