Time_of_Change

A Time of Change 1400-1600 The years 1400-1600 are were countries all around the world changed. In Asia, China was in their powerful Ming Dynasty period, under the ruler Yong Le. In Korea, the great King Sejong started to invent new things that brought Korea’s life today much more easier. In Europe, they had their renaissance, which is the rebirth of ancient Greek, and Rome. What happened in both Europe and Asia changed the world forever. In Asia, China was ruled under Ming Dynasty from 1368-1644, and Yong Le was the Emperor. Emperor Yong Le had the capital Nanjing moved to Beijing, this is an important piece of history because if the capital didn’t move, then there wouldn’t be no Forbidden City today in Beijing, but the capital did move to Beijing, and Yong Le had the Forbidden City constructed. Today now, The Forbidden City is a very important piece of Architecture. Yong Le also wanted to make China bigger, so he had Zheng He, a great explorer from China, to sail the seas, and find new land. Zheng He traveled the seas with a large army of 317 ships and 28,000 men. In this map, Zheng He traveled down to South Asia, and went across the ocean passing India, and Saudi Arabia, landing east of Africa. He then went on many voyages to other countries for trading. After Zheng He had died, China got rid of all papers that had to do with his voyages; China had also banned people from making large ships. In my opinion, the world now would be way different if China continued the voyages, because China could have discovered new lands like the America. In Asia, Korea had also been developing a lot of new things under King Sejong. One of the most important thing that he invented was The Hangul writing because before Korea had to use Chinese to write, and writing in Chinese is very hard, but with the new style of writing called Hangul, Koreans now can write much faster and it is way simpler than Chinese writing. Korea had also invited many other things like the sundial, and rain gauges. These things that they invented made Korea gain respect in the world. Moving away from Asia, Europe also had an event that changed the world in art and Science, The Renaissance. Before the renaissance, Europe had lots of falls, and the Black Death killed many people around the world, but one country, Italy, was in a state of peace and they kept trading with other countries outside of Europe, they became rich, and the Renaissance began. A new kind of Art was introduced since the Renaissance began. Many fantastic painters and sculptors were born; the most famous ones were Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. The picture above is called the “Mona Lisa”, and was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. The painting was painted because it was for the celebration of Lisa Del Giocondo’s second son and her new home. The most changing factor of the renaissance to the world would be the explorations that they did. Christopher Columbus was a big part of it. In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas and landed a new land now called the America. The map below shows the route of Columbus. There were a lot of things that happened during the time period 1400-1600, and most of them had an influence to the world. These influence help make the world what it is today. If the renaissance or the Christopher Columbus discovery didn’t happen, then the world today probably would be chaotic. Sources: * http://images.google.com.hk/imglanding'q=christopher+columbus+routes&hl=zh-CN&newwindow=1&safe=strict&biw=1280&bih=570&tbs=isch:1&tbnid=w4FUDqJHPi0K5M:&imgrefurl=http://scott.k12.va.us/jcollins/Christopher%252520Columbus.htm&imgurl=http://scott.k12.va.us/jcollins/images/Columbusmap.GIF&zoom=1&w=308&h=178&iact=hc&ei=z5L4TNWEI4-SuwOP-Zz1CA&oei=z5L4TNWEI4-SuwOP-Zz1CA&esq=1&page=1&tbnh=103&tbnw=178&start=0&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mona_Lisa.jpeg * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zheng-He-7th-expeditionj-map.svg