225 million years ago, Earth was one super-continent (Pangaea) and ocean.  About 10 million years ago, the North America that we know today was formed (geographical shape).  The first discoverers of North America were nomadic Asians who wandered over here by way of an exposed land bridge from Russia to Alaska during the Ice Age.  Though they were hunters at first, by 5000 BC, they had become hunter-gatherers with a diet of basically corn.  Great pre-European Indian cultures included the Pueblos, the Iroquois, the Mound Builders, the Mayans, the Incas, the Aztec, and the Sioux, among others (map of tribes on pg. 8).  The Indians revered nature and land, and didn’t carelessly destroy it.  Everything was put to use.

            In 1000 AD, Vikings discovered Newfoundland, but later abandoned it due to unfavorable conditions.  Europeans, though, slowly began to proliferate into non-European worlds starting around the 1400s.  After Marco Polo came back with stories of China and its riches, Europeans began to explore.  First, they set up settlements in Africa, near the coast, where they used African slaves to work on plantations.  In 1498, Vasco da Gama reached India, opening a sea route to the Far East. 

            Complications and dangers of this eastern sea route influenced Christopher Columbus to sail west.  In doing so, he inadvertently discovered the Americas, though he never knew it.  The Portuguese were first to settle in America, but the Spanish later became the dominant nation in the Americas.  Spanish Conquistadors swept through Latin and South America, destroying the Aztecs and the Incas.  Meanwhile, Magellan’s crew sailed around the world in 1519, becoming the first voyage to do so.  As the chapter ended, Spain was very much in control of much of the Americas, though other countries were beginning to challenge the Spanish dominance.