1.5Meanwhile, elsewhere (to 1492)

While these societies matured in North America, the wider world was busy and interconnected. In the 1400s, China's Ming dynasty sent Admiral Zheng He on vast treasure voyages across the Indian Ocean before turning inward. West Africa's Mali and Songhai empires grew rich on gold and salt; Timbuktu was a renowned center of learning.

In Europe, the Renaissance was reviving classical learning, and the 1450s printing press began spreading ideas faster than ever. The Ottoman Empire captured Constantinople in 1453, prompting Europeans to seek new sea routes to Asian markets. Portugal was already probing the African coast. When Columbus sailed west in 1492, he was not discovering an unknown planet but connecting worlds that had long developed apart—a collision that would transform all of them.