The
of the 15th century were very interested in buying and selling
goods. They traded gold,
and silk - products they got from Asia. People of those days also needed
to make food taste better.
For
, European merchants brought these goods on a
from Asia. but by the 15th century , the Turks became so
that they controlled most of the important routes and wanted more
from European traders.
So some countries, like Portugal and
, wanted to find another route to Asia. They thought they could
India and the
by sea. At the end of the century Vaso da Gama sailed around the
tip of Africa and reached the
coast of India. A few years earlier , Christopher Columbus became the first European to reach the
.