A two-part series that focuses on a key period of the Millennium-the years and events surrounding 1500-and their relevance to our time. Historians call this period the beginning of the Modern Age, the beginning of globalization. Before the 15th century, different cultures could inhabit the same globe, live separate lives, be oblivious of one another. Today, the world is so interconnected that ignorance of one another is no longer conceivable.