<P> By 1650, the religious map of Europe had been redrawn: Scandinavia, Iceland, north Germany, part of Switzerland, Netherlands and Britain were Protestant, while the rest of the West remained Catholic . A byproduct of the Reformation was increasingly literacy as Protestant powers pursued an aim of educating more people to be able to read the Bible . </P> <P> From its dawn until modern times, the West had suffered invasions from Africa, Asia, and non-Western parts of Europe . By 1500 Westerners took advantage of their new technologies, sallied forth into unknown waters, expanded their power and the Age of Discovery began, with Western explorers from seafaring nations like Portugal and Castile (later Spain) and later Holland, France and England setting forth from the "Old World" to chart faraway shipping routes and discover "new worlds". </P> <P> In 1492, the Genovese born mariner, Christopher Columbus set out under the auspices of the Crown of Castile to seek an oversea route to the East Indies via the Atlantic Ocean . Rather than Asia, Columbus landed in the Bahamas, in the Caribbean . Spanish colonization followed and Europe established Western Civilization in the Americas . The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama led the first sailing expedition directly from Europe to India in 1497 - 1499, by the Atlantic and Indian oceans, opening up the possibility of trade with the East other than via perilous overland routes like the Silk Road . Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer working for the Spanish Crown (under the Crown of Castile), led an expedition in 1519--1522 which became the first to sail from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific Ocean and the first to cross the Pacific . It also completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth (although Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines). </P> <P> The Americas were deeply affected by European expansion, due to conquest, sickness, and introduction of new technologies and ways of life . The Spanish Conquistadors conquered most of the Caribbean islands and overran the two great New World empires: the Aztec Empire of Mexico and the Inca Empire of Peru . From there, Spain conquered about half of South America, the remaining Central America and much of North America . Portugal also expanded in the Americas, attempting to establish some fishing colonies in northern North America first (with a relatively limited duration) and conquering half of South America and calling their colony Brazil . These Western powers were aided not only by superior technology like gunpowder, but also by Old World diseases which they inadvertently brought with them, and which wiped out large segments Amerindian population . The natives populations, called Indians by Columbus, since he originally thought he had landed in Asia (but often called Amerindians by scholars today), were converted to Catholicism and adopted the language of their rulers, either Spanish or Portuguese . They also adopted much of Western culture . Many Iberian settlers arrived, and many of them intermarried with the Amerindians resulting in a so - called Mestizo population, which became the majority of the population of Spain's American empires . </P>

From the perspective of western civilization where did organized applied marine science begin