Talk:Age of Discovery

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 January 2021 and 7 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): MichaelD6969.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:36, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Origin of the term "Age of Discovery"

I think the article would benefit from having a section on the origin of the term itself; when was it first used, who coined it, etc. I've found no information about this so far. If anyone can point me to reliable sources on the matter, I'll make the edit. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ausíhar (talk • contribs) 03:21, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

first paragraph

"Both terms are considered problematic, as they are both Eurocentric terms with white supremacist undertones. Regions encountered and settled by Europeans were already discovered and explored, The terms not only strip the humanity" this is cringe af lmfoa seriously who wrote this, remove immediately please chofl71.88.176.41 (talk) 03:09, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Ive removed the parapgraph again. It was first added on 17 June so we've been fine with a lead that did not have it for a long time. The problems I have with the addition are: 1) None of this discussion is in the body of the article, so it shouldn't be in the lead. 2) It's not in the source cited – at least not the "white supremacy" bit. Given that failure to verify, I'm not going to assume that the rest is in there either, especially since I am not even awarded the courtesy of a page number to check.

If there is substantial discussion about the "Age of Discovery" – both as a historical era and a term – in reliable sources as Eurocentricis (I doubt "white suprematist"), this content can be added in the body of the article first and then maybe summarized in the lead. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:19, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

List of Major Discoveries

On the List of Major Discoveries thing, it says that Cook discovered Antarctica in 1773, when in reality he only discovered nearby islands; Antarctica itself was discovered in 1820. The discovery of Antarctica is almost never attributed to Cook, so it shouldn't be included here. Someone should edit the list so that discovery is not included, or make it so it says something like "islands near Antarctica" instead.

I'm new to editing Wikipedia, but after I noticed this it bothered me for awhile, so i decided to post here. Please fix. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.16.33.4 (talk) 03:48, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Ruta de Cortés.svg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:38, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Title

Perhaps "European Age of Discovery" would be better? - Francis Tyers · 02:51, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

probably Cleter (talk) 02:00, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Insert texts about Dutch, English and French exploration

Please insert short texts outlining the Dutch, English and French contributions to European exploration 2001:4C4E:1E0D:2500:1881:A4AE:51D7:27CF (talk) 21:43, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

"Maritime discovery" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Maritime discovery and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 October 20#Maritime discovery until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 20:51, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

"Renaissance exploration" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Renaissance exploration and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 October 20#Renaissance exploration until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 20:52, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

"European discovery" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect European discovery and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 October 20#European discovery until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 20:55, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

"Ward words" or "wards words"?

There's internal inconsistency here. There are 26 instances of words that end in "ward" (like toward and westward) and seven that end in "wards" (like towards and westwards). Three Ward words were either in a footnote or "reward". That's fine inconsistency, as is me mixing a number (26) with a word (seven) in the very same talk page sentence. Out there in article space, though, whole other deal. It's one way or the other, same as months before days and days before months. Or serial commas, as in honour, colour and labour. Me, I like Ward words, especially in motion contexts. But if most respondents here vote for Wards words, so be it! InedibleHulk (talk) 05:04, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

@Nashville whiz: Care to vote for, elaborate on or otherwise discuss an option? InedibleHulk (talk) 05:14, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

I understand your temptation to have a uniformed consistency in articles, because that's what I strive to bring certain pages as well, but here it's not the case. "Toward" and " towards" may well be two admissible ways to mean the same thing: in the direction of. However, in all English-speaking countries, besides the US and Canada, "towards" is the more common spelling. Regarding "westward" and "westwards" and other similar words in this article, from my point of view, it's better to say "sailing westwards" rather than "westward", and "westward expansion" than "westwards expansion" in a sentence. As is evident, these are not the same. But fine, let others have their say on this. Nashville whiz (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 09:43, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

It was your fine idea. InedibleHulk (talk) 09:55, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not sure I know what you mean. Is it that new thing people call "sarcasm"?Nashville whiz (talk) 12:37, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

No. Is this the place you suggested I bring my concern, the "t/p"? If so, there you go. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:39, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Making a (possibly unfounded) presumption, this is an example of Wikipedia having a high proportion of editors who are too used to computer languages rather than spoken languages. You get inconsistencies like this. Sometimes it is better to use one form rather than the other, simply because is sounds better. This would not bother someone who wrote poetry, for instance. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 07:47, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree with ThoughtIdRetired. Neither is incorrect but in some cases I find that one sounds better than the other. I don't think that combing through the articles to standardize on one form or the other will yield the best results. Glendoremus (talk) 13:46, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Nashville whiz (talk) 06:24, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Notes for ship development

The coverage of the revolution in European ship technology is not properly addressed in this article. These are notes (to be added to) of sources that may be useful.

• "When and where a third mast was first fitted is not known but a Catalan document believed to date from 1406 shows a detailed sketch of a three-masted ship. Certainly within a few years of the adoption of a two-masted rig in England, there followed a third, and by the mid 15th century a three-masted square rig was in use throughout northern and southern Europe." (Adams, J. R.. A Maritime Archaeology of Ships: Innovation and Social Change in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe: A Maritime Archaeology of Early Modern Europe . Oxbow Books. (loc 2309)) and more within same source.
• "It is not generally realized in Europe... that sometime in the 14th and 15th centuries there appears to have been a fundamental change in the European methods of shipbuilding which resulted in ships capable of undertaking the voyages of exploration in the late 15th and 16th centuries...." (goes on to mention Basque shipbuilders). Basil Greenhill quoted in the report on the Red Bay excavations.

ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 10:09, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

References

linking Discovery and Exploration bibliographies?

There is a good bibliography under "Further reading" on the Exploration page. Is there a way to link this bibliography with the bibliography listed here, and vice versa? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration#Further_reading 134.124.26.122 (talk) 18:59, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Article blindness to wealth of northern new world

The article seems completely blind to the scale of trade originating in the northern part of the new world. We have 21 mentions of gold, but none of whale oil and cod. Yet maritime archaeologists who specialise in the Ships of Discovery can be found saying things like:
Dazzled by the glitter of gold and silver, historians have consistently overlooked the fact that more ships sailed for northern destinations than for southern ones, returning with cargos of whale oil and fish the net worth of which far exceeded the occasional, but dramatic, shipments of bullion and jewels from Central and South America.
This exploitation followed on quite rapidly from the discovery of this part of the Americas, with two key known start dates for this being 1517 and 1520.
The quote given above is from a conference in 1992 – substantially more than a quarter of a century ago. So there is little excuse for Wikipedia not to cover this unfashionable part of the subject. There may be plenty of coffee-table books that omit it, but solid academic sources are available. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 20:46, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

References

sfn or sfnp

@ThoughtIdRetired: The article currently uses both styles, and when I replaced the old-style hyperlink with a modern template I picked one of the two style in use. However, I am ambivalent about which, so use whichever you prefer. But the article must be consistent, and move to just one.

Long term the solution is each reader deciding what style they want to see, not the writer. That way this citation style BS finally ends. Elrondil (talk) 12:40, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

My actions are probably based on dealing with MOS:SHE4SHIPS problems in an article. Running pretty much on autopilot, that involves finding a version of the article before the changes, opening the whole article in edit, ctrl f to find occurrences of each type (much easier with sfn and sfnp as these cannot be parts of words), deciding which is most common and going from there. It's a surprisingly quick process. My notes on this show that the article had 229 references using <ref></ref> and 11 with {{sfn}}. 5 were changed to {{sfnp}} – so that created a style inconsistency that was not there before. Like you, I don't really care which is used, but changing roughly half of them doesn't make sense. And if we are looking for consistency, we have the glaring mix of short and long references, with the latter being much more common. That's a difficult one, as if you get to change one type to be consistent with the other, it often shows up referencing problems which have gone un-noticed and have to be fixed.

In reality, I don't think many encyclopaedia readers actually notice whether or not the year of a reference has brackets round it. Most of them don't read the references anyway. If they do, they are looking for a doi or an ISBN so that they can read the source for themselves (or put the reference in their coursework without reading it – even happens with peer-reviewed papers, causing Citogenesis in one instance that I have looked at.)

Sorry to sound so philosophical about the whole subject, but I have come to believe that Wikipedia will never sort out the whole referencing mess, so I reckon we just have to make the best job we can of what we have. There are some brave editors who go in and do big referencing inconsistency clean ups in defiance of MOS:VAR and seem to get away with it more often than not. Not sure how they do that. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 15:47, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

I am not your enemy 😀. I'm just a fellow editor going just as insane with this citation style shite. I believe, no, am CONVINCED, the answer is READERS deciding on the style they want to see instead of WRITERS forcing their preferences down everyone's throats. See Model–view–controller: writers should model, users should configure their preference, and Wikipedia should present the citation to the reader using that reader's configured preference (and IF that user has no preference configured THEN using their article/writer preference).

The article in question also uses direct CITEREFs, and currently Sen (2016) references are still in sfnp format. Full citations also show year in brackets following author. But … I really just picked arbitrarily, using whatever most recent example I had in my personal cheat sheet. Elrondil (talk) 16:48, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia won't solve it until there is a spark of a solution. I think that spark is users deciding how they want to see citations instead of writers deciding how EVERY reader will see that article's citations.

To do this, we need to express citations consistently so an algorithm can render it into the user's preference … whatever that preference is. Elrondil (talk) 17:02, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Heck, editors cannot even agree what citation "style" comprises … here for example it is argued that "style" is limited to formatting of the citation itself and not its use as references (i.e., short vs long). Other editors are of the opinion that using short for some and full for others is a style in itself, the exact mix being defined by the article itself … which means whatever is done is a style ... in other words, a tautology. Elrondil (talk) 17:17, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Gross historical plagiarism. Portuguese history and accomplishments being passed as Spanish.

There is a passage in the introduction that grossly plagiarises Portuguese accomplishments in the attempt to pass them as Spanish;

"These Spanish expeditions significantly impacted European perceptions of the world and eventually led to numerous naval expeditions across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, and land expeditions in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia that continued into the 19th century, followed by polar exploration in the 20th century." - This is factually wrong! It was the Portuguese expeditions, not the Spanish, that impacted European perceptions of the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Indian Ocean and Asia, not Spain! How on Earth can someone write this? Either who edited this is profoundly ignorant, or is actively attempting to plagiarise Portuguese history. As someone who studied Portuguese History, let me give you a history lesson:

The Spanish might have been the main explorers of America, but the Portuguese were the main explorers of the World during the age of Discovery; West Africa, Southern Atlantic, East Africa, Indian Ocean, SE Asia, Japan, etc

In 1415, date which kickstarted the Portuguese expansion, the most up to date map of the world done in Europe was the Italian de Virga world map, which looked something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Virga_world_map#/media/File:DeVirgaDetail.jpg

As you can see, the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, India and the Indian Ocean, as well as Asia, are practically unrecognizable. Despite Marco Polo's voyages to the far East, it was still a rather unknown continent. Africa was believed to end in Western Sahara, and they still believed that the garden of Eden was somewhere hidden in it, and Asia was believed to be a continent with a completely different shape and size. As for the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, they were both considered to be unsalaible from one another, since Europeans believed that the lands below the Equator were too hot because of the sun.

Fast forward to 1502, and the world now looked like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantino_planisphere#/media/File:Cantino_planisphere_(1502).jpg

This is called the Cantino map, which is the name of the Italian spy who stole the official map from Lisbon. This is considered to be the first precursor map of the modern world, done by the Portuguese explorations and navigations. Almost everything to the east of the Tordesillas line was cartographed by the Portuguese, which for the first time in human history started to show Africa, Asia, the Atlantic and Indian Oceans closer to the size and shape that we now know of them today, except for eastern Asia which the Portuguese would arrive in 1509.

This is yet another important piece of information that is widely unknown in the world. Up until that point, it was believed that inter-oceanic travel was virtually impossible. When Vasco da Gama arrived at the Indian Ocean, the Arabs, who had been sailing in that Ocean for hundreds of years before the Portuguese arrived there, were surprised to see them entering from the Atlantic. This massive feat of navigation changed the view of the world, and it proved that oceans could be sailed from one another. This allowed the Portuguese to be the first people to establish global maritime trade routes. By 1514, the Portuguese had managed to establish sea routes between Europe, West Africa, Canada, Brazil, East Africa, around to the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, China and SE Asia, whilst the Spanish and Italian navigators for instance, only knew how to navigate between Europe and America.

It was thanks to this voyage, that other future European voyages were made possible; for instance, the Spanish were only able to sail to Asia thanks to Magellan, who showed them how to do inter-oceanic travel via the Pacific. Without the expertise of a Portuguese navigator (who were the only ones qualified for inter-oceanic travel), they would have never participated in the first circumnavigation of the world, and the same goes for the Dutch and English, who were only able to sail to Asia 100 years later thanks to maps they got from the Portuguese. It’s a shame that the Portuguese contribution to the exploration of the world is widely unknown or ignored today. The Portuguese accomplished roughly 50 major voyages of maritime exploration (when the Spanish did around 10), and established the vast majority of the oceanic trade routes, maps and brought the most knowledge of the outside world into Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maritime_explorers

To conclude, the Portuguese were the ones who brought the most knowledge of the outside world to Europe, not Spain! Only in relation to North America and the Pacific did the Spanish bring more knowledge to Europe than Portugal, and that was because a Portuguese navigator (Magellan) brought knowledge of the world's oceans to Spain which they did not possess! As the above maps CLEARLY PROVE (and any books about Portuguese history that anyone can be bothered to actually learn about), the Portuguese were the people that brought the most knowledge of the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Indian Ocean and Asia into Europe.

I therefore strongly urge someone to edit that passage, to at the very least include "Portugal and Spain", as opposed to merely "Spain". The passage should read:

"These Spanish AND PORTUGUESE expeditions significantly impacted European perceptions of the world and eventually led to numerous naval expeditions across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, and land expeditions in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia that continued into the 19th century, followed by polar exploration in the 20th century." ~2026-10345-99 (talk) 21:25, 15 February 2026 (UTC)