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Who discovered Eurasia and when?

The question of who discovered Eurasia, rises sooner or later before every lover of history and geography. After all, all heard wonderful stories about Columbus, Vasco da Gama and the numerous conquistadors who conquered the expanses of North and South America. However, with Eurasia everything is not so simple, because there was not one traveler who would have belonged to the laurels of the discoverer of the largest continent on the planet. Therefore, it will be problematic to name the one who discovered Eurasia. The name of this person is unknown.

It will be more correct to focus on the main stages of research and description of the geographical location of the continent and people who participated in numerous expeditions, the purpose of which was to explore the surrounding world.

Who first discovered Eurasia. The first people on the continent

All the main stages of evolution of the human species took place in Africa and, only fully formed, began expansion into the neighboring continent. Until recently, Africa and Eurasia were connected by a relatively wide Suez Isthmus and only in the XlX century. It was torn apart by an artificially created shipping canal.

It was on this isthmus and the much-diminished Red Sea at the time that the first Homo sapiens moved to the Middle East, settling on the Arabian Peninsula. Such a significant event happened, according to some estimates, approximately 70,000 years ago.

According to the widespread theory among modern scholars, people, leaving Africa, slowly moved east along the coasts in search of new sources of food, which they served as shellfish, living in shallow water. This way was long and difficult and took about 25,000 years, and of course, the route was not so direct - numerous groups fought back and went deep into the continent. Thus, those who discovered the continent of Eurasia, were the first people who emerged from the African continent, but to think about their place in the world, humanity will need many thousands of years.

Who discovered Eurasia and in what year. Appearance of the term

Europeans are used to believe that the primacy in geographical discoveries is unconditionally theirs. And although the contribution of European seafarers, traders and travelers is really great, we should not discount the Asian researchers, who also contributed to the study of the geography of the continent.

However, the name was given to the mainland by Europeans. For a long time, after the contours of the continent were more determined, the scientific literature used a variety of terms for naming the largest continent of the Earth.

For example, Alexander Humboldt, a great German scientist, one of whose specializations was geography, used the name Asia for the whole continent, without dividing it into parts of the world. But his Austrian colleague Eduard Suess in the 1880s has already added a prefix "euro" and thus formed the name of Eurasia, which quickly entered into scientific use.

Great Northern Expeditions

If the southern shores of Eurasia were mastered by mankind for many tens of thousands of years, the northern outskirts of the continent remained unexplored for a long time, as severe climatic conditions prevented this.

First of all, in the study of the northern regions, the powers that had access to the North Atlantic, and especially the Russian Empire, whose borders passed through unexplored and undescribed lands, were interested. North began to move north in the XVI century, but Kamchatka reached only in the XVII century.

The first Russian subjects who came to the Kamchatka Peninsula were people from the detachment of the great Russian explorer and discoverer of the northeast Siberia of Mikhail Stadukhin. This, however, was an overland expedition.

Bering Strait

For a long time the researchers were concerned about the existence of a bridge between Eurasia and North America, but it was not so easy to answer it. Answering the question about who discovered Eurasia, one can not avoid mentioning the name of the famous Danish navigator and Russian citizen Vitus Bering, who made a huge contribution to the research of the shores of the northeastern part of the Eurasian continent.

The first sea expedition, whose purpose was to find the strait or to prove its absence, took place in 1724, when Peter Bering, on Peter's personal order, went on a voyage, following which he went to the Chukchi Sea without encountering obstacles and seeing the American coast. Thus, it was proved that the two continents are separated by a strait, which was named after its discoverer.

The success of the first Kamchatka expedition inspired the researchers to organize a whole series of campaigns that went down in history under the name of the Great Northern Expedition. Each of these campaigns brought more and more information about the coast of the Arctic Ocean, and the outlines of the continent became more and more clear, as if emerging from sea haze.

Colonization and international cooperation

Arguing about who first discovered and explored Eurasia, one name can not be named, but one can recall the numerous travelers who contributed to the study of unknown lands and cartography.

At the turn of the XV-XVI centuries, the leaders in the study of the overseas lands were the Portuguese, but they did not hurry to share their knowledge with their knowledge, justly fearing competition. However, the curiosity of the competitors was so great that no obstacles could stop the spies of neighboring states from penetrating into the holy of holies the Portuguese cartography - the Indian house, the place where information was stored about the newly discovered lands.

It was as a result of the espionage operation planned by the Duke of Ercole d'Este that a famous map was stolen from this storage facility, which was included in the history under the name of Planisfera Cantino. On this map you can see the world as it was presented to the Portuguese in the XV century. This map shows the coast of Brazil and a narrow strip of the southern and southeastern coasts of Eurasia.

Great researchers

Today one can confidently say that such researchers as Vasco da Gama, who reached the coast of India, and Willem Barents, who persistently sought the northern route to the East Indies, but made a special discovery and explored the Arctic, made a special contribution to the study of Eurasia.

The era of the Great Discoveries stretched over more than two centuries and included studies of Spanish and Portuguese navigators looking for new routes to India, as well as trips of Russian Cossacks to Siberia and the Pacific coast. Therefore, responding to the question of who discovered and explored Eurasia, you can name such names: Bering, Vasco da Gama, Timothy Ermak, as well as the names of many other remarkable people.

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