University of Groningen
American History: Essays: First European Exploration and Exploitation
Essay on the exploitation and decimation of indigenous peoples as a result of European exploration, settlement, and colonization in North and South America.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Exploration and Colonization of America
Given short summaries about the reasons for European exploration and colonization of North America, students will compare English and Spanish settlements in the New World.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Us History: 1491 1607: European Exploration in the Americas
A quick comprehension check over European Exploration in the Americas.
Texas State Historical Association
Texas State Historical Association: Early European Exploration and Development
A chronological timeline of early European exploration and development in Texas spanning from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: America's History in the Making: Mapping Initial Encounters
Columbus' arrival laid the basis for encounters between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans. This unit examines how these contacts altered the way of life of peoples around the globe.
![Texas State Historical Association: European Exploration [Pdf] Lesson Plan](https://d15y2dacu3jp90.cloudfront.net/images/attachment_defaults/resource/large/FPO-knovation.png "Texas State Historical Association: European Exploration [Pdf] Lesson Plan")
Texas State Historical Association
Texas State Historical Association: European Exploration [Pdf]
An activity guide where learners refer to the Texas Almanac, which is free to download, for information needed to complete assigned tasks. In this lesson, students are asked to research Spanish and French explorers and create a 'living...
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mit: Open Course Ware: The Conquest of America
Consider these resources while illustrating the natives' response to Europeans settling into the Americas.
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Gilder Lehrman Institute: Age of Exploration
[Free Registration/Login Required] Learn about the exploration of the Americas. Site includes primary source documents, videos, essays, and lesson plans to help students research the exploration of the new land.
Wisconsin Historical Society
American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts Early American Exploration/settlement
A collaborative project of the Wisconsin Historical Society and National History Day, this site contains over 18,000 pages of primary source, eyewitness accounts of North American exploration starting with the Vikings.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Colonial Williamsburg: Numismatics: Coins and Currency in Colonial America
Valuable lessons in the history of Europeans' early exploration and settlement of America can be gained by following the money used in trade. Coins and Currency exhibition lets you examine evidence of Spanish, British, Dutch, French, and...
University of Calgary
European Voyages of Exploration: 15th & 16th Centuries
This award-winning website from the University of Calgary's History Department is both impressive and extensive. It focuses on Portuguese and Spanish expeditions of the 15th and 16th centuries (the sitemap provides a good outline of...
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: The First Europeans
The first Europeans to arrive in North America -- at least the first for whom there is solid evidence -- were Norse, traveling west from Greenland, where Erik the Red had founded a settlement around the year 985. In 1001 his son Leif is...
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: The First Europeans
The first Europeans to arrive in North America -- at least the first for whom there is solid evidence -- were Norse, traveling west from Greenland, where Erik the Red had founded a settlement around the year 985. In 1001 his son Leif is...
The Newberry Library
Newberry: Exploration and Encounter: Map 3, Captain Cook and Hawaii, 1778
Map and primary source information provide first-hand account of exploration and encounters between Europeans and Hawaiians. Includes lesson plans for k-12, links to reference material and supplemental resources, and curators notes.
Other
Texas Bob: The First Europeans in Texas: 1528 1536
One of the first Europeans to penetrate the interior of Texas, read Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca's account of his shipwreck and eventual return to the Spanish Court.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Motivation for European Conquest of the New World
God, gold, and glory motivated European nations to explore and create colonies in the New World. This article discusses the Crusades and how they influenced European colonization projects.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Pre Colonization European Society
The Church, disease, and large urban centers dictated societal structure in European societies before the colonization of the New World. Read more about Europe during the Middle Ages.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Us History: 1491 1607: Quiz 1
Take this five question quiz over the Native Americans and European exploration in the Americas.
Louisiana Department of Education
Louisiana Doe: Louisiana Believes: Social Studies: Grade 5: The Age of Exploration in the Americas
Read and study the sources about the European Age of Exploration. As you read the four sources, think about the ways in which exploration during this time period impacted the Americas.
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: The Literature of Exploration
Had history taken a different turn, the United States easily could have been a part of the great Spanish or French overseas empires. Its present inhabitants might speak Spanish and form one nation with Mexico, or speak French and be...
Bullock Texas State History Museum
Bullock Museum: American Indians
Immerse in the campfire stories of the people who defined Texas. Find out about how the two Americas: the Europeans' version, and the American Indians' version, started changing forever.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The French, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Three maps reflecting French exploration along rivers in North America and three French explorers' accounts of the astonishing hardships they endured and the possibilities for trade with natives they opened.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Us History: 1491 1607: Environmental/health Effects in New World
European arrival in the Americas decimated both indigenous people and previously-flourishing ecosystems.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Spanish, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Two maps and four accounts of the Spanish exploration of North America that reflect the goals of the conquistadors and fascination with the land they examined-and the brutality of their treatment of native peoples.