• Describe the movement of humans from Asia to North America and the con-sequences both for them and for their new environment.

• Recount the rise and fall of successive Native American empires in Mesoamerica and North America between 2000 B.C. and A.D. 1000.

• Account for the sudden expansiveness and growing technological expertise of the seafaring nations of the Mediterranean, especially Portugal and Spain, around A.D. 1500.

• Compare and contrast the efforts of England, France, and Spain to explore and plant colonies in North America in the century following Columbus’s voyage of discovery.

• Summarize the strategies of conquest and administration that Spain developed to create and consolidate their control over New Spain.

• Explore the technological and intellectual impact of European contact with North and South America by discussing the "Columbian exchange" and the birth of "science."

c. 80,000 B.C. Ice Age creates land bridge (Beringia) between Asia and North America.

c. 27,000 B.C. Earliest evidence of human migration from Asia to North America.

c. 18,000–13,000 B.C. Probable period of first human migration to Western Hemisphere.

c. 10,000 B.C. Clovis culture flourishes.

c. 8000 B.C.Folsom culture flourishes.

c. 7000 B.C. Plano culture flourishes.

c. 3000 B.C.Bow and arrow arrive in the North American Arctic from Asia.

c. 2300 B.C. Sedentary societies develop in the Tehuacán Valley of Mexico.

100 B.C.– A.D. 400 Hopewell people develop "mound-building" cultures in Ohio Valley.

c. 986 Viking explorers reach North American coast.

1469 Aragon and Castile unite to create Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella.

1492 Spain expels the Moors and Jews.

Columbus’s first voyage to America.

1493–96 Columbus’s second voyage to America.

1494 Treaty of Tordesillas divides Western Hemisphere between Spain and Portugal.

1497–1509 John Cabot and Sebastian Cabot explore North American coast for England.

1498–1500 Columbus’s third voyage to America.

1502–04 Columbus’s fourth voyage to America.

1524–36 Giovanni de Verrazano and Jacques Cartier explore North American coast for France.

1519–21 Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés conquers Tenochtitlán and creates Mexico City.

1533–35 Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro conquers Incan empire.

1535 Spain creates New Spain.

1544 Spain creates New Castile.