Welcome to

1492: AN ONGOING VOYAGE

an Exhibit of the Library of Congress, Washington, DC

1492. Columbus. The date and the name provoke many questions related to the linking of very different parts of the world, the Western Hemisphere and the Mediterranean. What was life like in those areas before 1492? What spurred European expansion? How did European, African and American peoples react to each other? What were some of the immediate results of these contacts?

1492: AN ONGOING VOYAGE addresses such questions by examining the rich mixture of societies coexisting in five areas of this hemisphere before European arrival. It then surveys the polyglot Mediterranean world at a dynamic turning point in its development.

The exhibition examines the first sustained contacts between American people and European explorers, conquerors and settlers from 1492 to 1600. During this period, in the wake of Columbus's voyages, Africans also arrived in the hemisphere, usually as slaves. All of these encounters, some brutal and traumatic, others more gradual, irreversibly changed the way in which peoples in the Americas led their lives.

The dramatic events following 1492 set the stage for numerous cultural interactions in the Americas which are still in progress - a complex and ongoing voyage.

The exhibit is divided into six sections:

You may view the exhibit by selecting any of the above sections, or you may choose to browse the entire exhibit by selecting More information can be found in If this is your first visit to the 1492: An Ongoing Voyage , then you may want to read How to Use the 1492 Exhibit for suggestions on how to navigate through the exhi bit.

You may obtain information about order the catalog for this exhibit from the EXPO Book Store.

There is a free EXPO Shuttle Bus waiting outside. It is very comfortable and quickly takes you to other exciting EXPO exhibits. It also makes a routine stop at the EXPO Ticket Office.

Next to the entrance door, there is the EXPO Bulletin Board with all kinds of notes from various visitors. Among other things, it contains up to date info from the EXPO organization.

The text and images in the Online Exhibit 1492: AN ONGOING VOYAGE are for the personal use of students, scholars, and the public. Any commercial use or publication of them is strictly prohibited.

Note: This hypertext Library contains inlined images in GIF format. The tiny pictures you see in the text are links to full size GIF equivalents (each of which is 100 to 400 KB). Just click on the tiny ones to see the big ones.

This hypermedia interface to 1492: AN ONGOING VOYAGE was done by Jeff Barry, barry@scholar.lib.utk.edu. Thanks to frans van hoesel for comments and suggestions.

The orignial data was copied by FTP from ftp.loc.gov. Questions or comments about the online exhibit should be directed to the Library of Congress Word Wide WebTeam (lcweb@loc.gov).