History Lecture Series: “Conquering the Pacific: An Unknown Mariner and the Final Great Voyage of the Age of Discovery”

In the first lecture, UC Davis history professor Andrés Reséndez, PhD, will discuss how, after a Genoese navigator brought the Atlantic World into existence in 1492, a similar “Columbian moment” occurred in the Pacific. Yes, Polynesian navigators first crossed the great ocean by island-hopping from the coast of China to the Americas; and yes, Magellan was the first European to go from the New World to Asia. But the first complete transpacific voyage — from America to Asia and back — occurred in 1564-65. Known only to a few specialists, this dramatic expedition finally turned the largest ocean on Earth into a vital space of human contact and exchange.

Reséndez specializes in early European exploration and colonization of the Americas, the U.S-Mexico border region, and the early history of the Pacific, particularly the pioneering voyages of discovery and the biological exchanges across the largest ocean on Earth.

The series will continue with:

• Nov. 10: Chris Kimball, PhD, “Breaking Baseball’s Color Line: Another Look”
• Dec. 1: David Nelson, PhD, “Japan’s Schindler: Sugihara Chiune and the Power of the Visa”
• Jan. 26: Michaela Reaves, PhD, “Making the World Safe for Democracy: World War I?”
• April 20: Samuel Claussen, PhD, “Hear Me Roar: Powerful, Violent Women of the Renaissance”

This series is presented by the History Department faculty and other experts, focusing on different periods in world history. The series is sponsored by Cal Lutheran, the Thousand Oaks Grant R. Brimhall Library and Ventura County Library, and generously funded in part by a Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation grant.