Mastering the Seas: Advances in Trigonometry and Their Impact upon Astronomy, Cartography, and Maritime Navigation
Overview
Until the advent of modern navigational tools in the sixteenth century, mariners had since ancient times used similar methods of navigating, largely by instinct. Even as late as the earliest voyages to the New World by Spanish and Portuguese explorers, mariners who embarked on voyages across open waters, out of the sight of land, could primarily only navigate by keeping a daily record of the general distances and directions they traveled, surrounding currents, wind patterns, hazards, and sightings of land. These journals, or ship logs, were used to notice "landmarks" at sea and retrace one's path back to their port of origin. Though pin-point navigation from these journals was difficult, the body of information collected over numerous voyages was immensely useful and often later incorporated into more mathematically accurate charts.
Practical inventions of the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, and innovations of existing instruments, were largely responsible for the modernization of navigation on the high seas. With increased ability to accurately plan voyages, trade boomed, transforming forever the shape of Europe and the Americas. Though early European exploration sparked interest in the lands across the Atlantic, advancements in navigation made colonial settlement and international trade a perceptible reality.
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