This was a century when European explorers were traveling farther than they had ever gone before from their own shores. Ferdinand and Isabella were competing with the Portuguese to find routes to travel to Southern Asia. These routes were incredibly valuable, as merchants could buy large quantities of luxury goods such as spices like pepper and cinnamon, porcelain, ivory, cotton, or even silk, then bring them back to Europe and sell them at a huge profit. But these voyages were also very risky. Signing on to a voyage of exploration was a bit like buying a lottery ticket, where you had just as good a chance of earning a fortune as you did of never returning. It is astonishing to imagine just how many sailors were willing to accept this risk and set sail for unknown shores, often without having any idea precisely where their destination was. Until  ...