Officially recognized discovery of America by Europeans was, in fact, chronologically second, because the development of the continent from Asia and Polynesia started 10-15 thousand years earlier. The first Europeans in the New World were the Spaniards. In October 1492, three Spanish caravels cast anchor at the small island of the Western Hemisphere, designed by Admiral Christopher Columbus as San Salvador – «Holy Savior». Common reasons for sending expeditions were: growth in the European commercial production; lack of precious metals and related search for new lands, which had hoped to find gold and silver, spices and ivory (in the tropics), valuable fur and walrus tusks in the Nordic countries) ; search for new trade routes from Europe to India and East Asia due to the desire of Western European merchants to get rid of trade intermediaries and to establish a direct link with Asian countries (Turkish conquest almost completely closed the highway to the east through Asia Minor and Syria). Great geographical discoveries were possible because of the advances of science and technology: the creation of a sufficiently reliable for ocean sailing vessels Caravel), improvement of the compass and nautical charts, etc.; greater role was played by increasingly adopted ideas of sphericity of Earth. The importance for the great geographical discoveries were made in the field of geographical knowledge and the development of navigation among the peoples of the East. Great geographical discoveries were the events of world-historical significance. There have been established the contours of inhabited continents (except for the northern and north-west coast of America and the east coast of Australia), investigated most of the Earth’s surface, but still many unexplored areas of domestic America, central Africa and all interior Australia. Great geographical discoveries have provided the extensive new material to many other areas of knowledge (botany, zoology, ethnography, etc.). As a result, Great geographical discoveries Europeans first became acquainted with a number of agricultural crops (potatoes, corn, tomatoes, tobacco), and then spread them to Europe. Great geographical discoveries had important socio-economic consequences. The discovering of new trade routes and new countries contributed to the fact that trade has become global in nature. There has been a huge increase in the number of goods. This has accelerated the expansion of feudalism and the emergence of capitalist relations in Western Europe. The colonial system, created after the great geographical discoveries (in this period, Europeans destroyed the indigenous population, seized vast territory in America and organized a base on the coast of Africa, South and East Asia), was one of the levers of the so-called primitive accumulation of capital. This influx has helped after the Great geographical discoveries of cheap American gold and silver in Europe, causing much higher prices. Navigating by the great geographic discoveries of trade routes from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic has contributed to economic decline in some European countries (Italy, part of Germany) and the elevation of others (Netherlands, United Kingdom). Russian great geographical discoveries have cont