Gordon Miller Sailing into History

Voyages of Discovery

The sixteenth century saw an explosion of voyages into the undiscovered oceans of the world. At first financed by the Crowns of Portugal and Spain, they were soon joined by England, France and the Dutch. By the end of that century, the world had been circumnavigated four times, and by the end of the eighteenth century only the Northwest Passage was left to be charted.