This paper examines how the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492 changed the the
geography of the world
with an entire new continent appearing on maps of what would soon be seen as a globe instead of a flat surface. In particular it looks at how the
geography of known disease also changed as Old World
diseases such as smallpox, measles and influenza found a new population with no immunity because it had had no exposure to these diseases before. It examines how this effect became known as the Columbian Exchange and evaluates the result of this exchange of diseases between the Native Americans and the Europeans.