It can be hard to draw conclusions on why people in the past made the decisions that they did. Some historians believe that climate and geography played the most important role in the Europeans discovering the New World in 1492. While there are many events tying into the discovery of the Americas, I do believe that geography played the most important role in conquering the New World. The Europeans struggled to get to Asia through the Middle East, so they were forced to find a new way. After some failed attempts, they got the idea to sail westward, where they found a new land. It is hard to imagine what would have happened in the Americas if the Europeans had not traveled westward in search for a new route to Asia like they did. If the Muslims in the Middle East had not given the Europeans so much trouble passing through their land to Asia, how long would it have taken for the new land to be discovered? Would the Europeans ever have sailed west to find the Americas and end up creating a new country or would the Native Americans have owned the land forever? Many Europeans aspired to travel to Asia because some of the countries in Asia had gunpowder, silk, wool, and spices that European countries did not have. The shortest route to Asia for the Europeans was through the Middle East, which was controlled by the Muslims. The Muslims did not welcome the Europeans onto their land. Many times that the Europeans traveled east, they would be stopped at the Middle East and sent home. They wasted time and money getting there just to turn around and head back home. Other times, the Muslims would let them through to head to Asia and then on their way back, the Muslims would strip them of all the goods they collected from Asia, still sending them home with nothing, and having wasted many years of their lives. This forced the Europeans to find a new way to get to Asia. The Portuguese made an attempt to sail around Africa to get to Asia, it was unsuccessful. In an attempt to help with the trip, they built forts down the western side of Africa to not only stop the Spaniards from traveling around Africa, but to supply themselves when they were running low on water and supplies. It took the Portuguese over 100 years to sail around the West side of Africa to get to Asia. Christopher Columbus was an Italian male who believed that it would only take about a month to sail from Europe to Asia sailing west, he also believed that the Earth was round and nearly ninety percent land. Columbus asked around for people to help finance a trip to sail west to find a new route to Asia, but most people rejected him because of his belief that there was more land than they thought there was. Columbus decided to ask the King and Queen of Spain to finance his journey. King Ferdinand and Qu