The biggest thing to happen during this time period was the Black Plague, a huge epidemic that spread throughout most of the known world. It was so big that it killed over 20% of the population of all of Europe, that's 1 out of every 5 people! You can imagine what that did to the economies of each country and kingdom. Everyday life became difficult as there weren't enough people to do all of the needed jobs there were to do. And what's worse, everybody was afraid that they would get the Black Plague so nobody really left their home unless it was an emergency. This ground most trade to a halt.

     There were still small wars and battles going on all around. Some countries were really into kidnapping members of the royal families of their enemies. King John II, the King of France, was captured by the British and held for ransom. They asked for a lot, and only got about half of what they wanted. A funny fact is that Windsor Castle, one of the palaces of Queen Elizabeth II of England who reigns in Great Britain today, was built using this ransom money the French paid Britain to get their king back.

     Because inflation was so bad during this time period (as with most times we've seen so far!), people were holding on to their gold coins and even melting them down for the raw gold, which was still worth a lot. This caused a big depletion of the gold reserves of most of the countries of Europe which caused some seafaring nations such as Portugal to start exploring around the oceans. Other nations like Spain will soon join in and the Age of Exploration will be upon us!

     China, after over 500 years of having paper money, decided to give up on it because their inflation problems became so bad. At one point, one of their paper money notes that was normally worth 1,000 cash was only really valued at 3! You probably had to have a wheelbarrow full of Chinese money just to buy food!

     And of course at the end of this era, in 1492 to be exact, Christopher Columbus happened to discover The New World while searching for an easier trade route to the West Indies to get spices. The discovery of new trade routes was, at the time, thought to be much more important than the new lands that were discovered along the way. This would change big-time as the Spanish find out in our next era!

Did You Know?

Leonardo DaVinci drew up plans for a water-driven coin press that was widely adopted all over Europe. This press would stamp coins that were more uniform in weight and size.