South Atlantic, off Africa — 1499
The slow-moving light seen by Pedro Cabral
A phenomenon difficult to explain as a meteor occurred when Pedro Alvares Cabral left Portugal on an expedition of 13 vessels and a crew of 1,200 men. The expedition was plagued with incidents. However, had it not been for one such near-disaster they would never have headed west and gone down in history as the first men to reach Brazil in the year 1500. As they were sailing around Africa they saw a luminous object in the southern sky. It only remained in sight for 8 minutes, moving slowly towards the Cape of Good Hope. Shortly after, a hurricane arose. Six ships sank or ran aground. The remaining seven went on to the Americas. These vessels made it back to Lisbon bringing with them a fortune in spices and news about the discovery of Brazil and Madagascar.
Source: W. B. Greenlee, ed., The Voyage of Pedro Alvares Cabral to Brazil and India (London: Hakluyt Society, 1937). Epilogue to Part I-B By the close of the 15 century the use of printing had changed everything in terms of the generation and distribution of knowledge. German inventor Johann Gutenberg (1397-1468), who may have been aware of earlier Chinese and Korean printing methods, had developed molds that allowed for the mass production of individual pieces of metal type. Printing presses soon began to appear all over Europe. Books were scarce, copied by monks or (after the 13th century) in commercial scriptoria, written by hand. While it might take someone a year or more to hand copy a Bible, with the Gutenberg press it was possible to create several hundred copies a year. Printed works were not immediately popular: some nobles refused to keep printed books in their libraries, fearing that would depreciate their valuable manuscripts. Much of the Islamic world, where calligraphic traditions were extremely important, also resisted. In spite of this, Gutenberg’s printing press spread rapidly. Within thirty years of its invention Case: W112