Today the Americas are a huge part of the global community, but was there any way for people in Europe to know that the 'discovery' (or rather rediscovery) of the New World would result in?
Would there have been an "holy shit" moment when people discovered there was land over the Atlantic, or was it a more gradual realisation of how substantial the discovery was?
EDIT: I forgot to add, by "impact" I meant more "immediate impact" rather than long term; we all know that the New World eventually had a substantial impact in many ways on Europe of course. :P But how eventful was it to European societies in the short term? Was it something akin to finding life on another planet?
A couple of important points here:
-The discovery of the New World shifted economic power away from the Mediterranean and toward the Atlantic. Italy, and Spain waned in importance while Britain and the Netherlands ascended.
-The discovery of vast new worlds in conjunction with new discoveries in astronomy provided a huge challenge to the supposedly omniscient Church. It seemed that science and reason may have held answers that the Church did not. Then bam- Enlightenment and modernity.