GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

Detailed explanation-1: -Christopher Columbus introduced horses, sugar plants, and disease to the New World, while facilitating the introduction of New World commodities like sugar, tobacco, chocolate, and potatoes to the Old World. The process by which commodities, people, and diseases crossed the Atlantic is known as the Columbian Exchange.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Columbian Exchange, sometimes called the Grand Exchange was the exchange of goods and ideas from Europe, Africa, and Asia and goods and ideas from the Americas. It also spread different diseases. It started in 1492 when Christopher Columbus arrived in the West Indies (North America).

Detailed explanation-3: -The exchange introduced a wide range of new calorically rich staple crops to the Old World-namely potatoes, sweet potatoes, maize, and cassava. The primary benefit of the New World staples was that they could be grown in Old World climates that were unsuitable for the cultivation of Old World staples.

Detailed explanation-4: -The historian Alfred Crosby first used the term “Columbian Exchange” in the 1970s to describe the massive interchange of people, animals, plants and diseases that took place between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres after Columbus’ arrival in the Americas.