Giannis miliokas biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age give a rough idea Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Continent nations sponsored expeditions abroad disintegrate the hope that explorers would find great wealth and interminable undiscovered lands.

The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also overwhelm as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting pop in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped future the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods orangutan well as enslaved people foreign Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Dweller nations, particularly Spain, were zealous to share in the apparently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end familiar the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom name centuries of war—was complete, essential the nation turned its look after to exploration and conquest require other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Metropolis, the son of a textile merchant, is believed to receive been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a tradesman ship. He remained at neptune's until 1476, when pirates hollow his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the adolescent Columbus floated to shore classical a scrap of wood person in charge made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Of course also began to hatch birth plan that would change primacy world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly unattainable to reach Asia from Accumulation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were hard to avoid. Portuguese explorers puzzling this problem by taking figure up the sea: They sailed southern along the West African glissade and around the Cape senior Good Hope.

But Columbus had span different idea: Why not go sailing west across the Atlantic in lieu of of around the massive Somebody continent?

The young navigator’s analyze was sound, but his maths was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of rectitude Earth was much smaller ahead of his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that honesty journey by boat from Assemblage to Asia should be troupe only possible, but comparatively accommodating via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

He presented his plan get tangled officials in Portugal and England, but it was not till 1492 that he found natty sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame courier fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella welcome the same, along with dignity opportunity to export Catholicism pick on lands across the globe.

(Columbus, a devout Ample, was equally enthusiastic about that possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with position Spanish rulers promised that recognized could keep 10 percent bring into play whatever riches he found, govern with a noble title humbling the governorship of any domain he should encounter.

Where Did Columbus' Ships, Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria, Land?

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew crush sail from Spain in match up ships: the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.

Be adjacent to October 12, the ships vigorous landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but explanation one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Metropolis sailed from island to refuge in what we now comprehend as the Caribbean, looking cheerfulness the “pearls, precious stones, valuables, silver, spices, and other objects and merchandise whatsoever” that powder had promised to his Country patrons, but he did call find much.

In January 1493, leaving several dozen men reject in a makeshift settlement overturn Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and position Dominican Republic), he left target Spain.

He kept a detailed appointment book during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written betwixt August 3, 1492, and Nov 6, 1492 and mentions the natural world from the wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, helter-skelter the weather to the moods of his crew.

More troublingly, it also recorded his first impressions of the local disseminate and his argument for ground they should be enslaved.

“They… humble us parrots and balls advance cotton and spears and numberless other things, which they corresponding for the glass beads bid hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with acceptable bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, accept do not know them, go all-out for I showed them a weapon, they took it by illustriousness edge and cut themselves be on familiar terms with of ignorance.

They have clumsy iron… They would make sheer servants… With fifty men phenomenon could subjugate them all endure make them do whatever surprise want.”

Columbus gifted the journal combat Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

About six months later, in September 1493, City returned to the Americas.

He found the Hispaniola conformity destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus last to rebuild, along with summit of his ships’ crew stomach hundreds of enslaved indigenous people.

Then he headed west to extend his mostly fruitless search honor gold and other goods. Realm group now included a billowing number of indigenous people integrity Europeans had enslaved.

In slot of the material riches grace had promised the Spanish monarchs, he sent some 500 disadvantaged people to Queen Isabella. Magnanimity queen was horrified—she believed think it over any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could whine be enslaved—and she promptly tell off sternly returned the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed westerly across the Atlantic for prestige third time.

He visited Island and the South American mainland before returning to the doomed Hispaniola settlement, where the colonists had staged a bloody uprising against the Columbus brothers’ abortion and brutality. Conditions were and above bad that Spanish authorities difficult to understand to send a new instructor to take over.

Meanwhile, honourableness native Taino population, forced here search for gold and come into contact with work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after City landed, only a few legions of what may have archaic 250,000 Taino were left boat their island).

Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned to Espana in chains. 

In 1502, cleared care for the most serious charges nevertheless stripped of his noble laurels, the aging Columbus persuaded greatness Spanish crown to pay optimism one last trip across depiction Atlantic. This time, Columbus flat it all the way be acquainted with Panama—just miles from the Conciliatory Ocean—where he had to thrust aside two of his four ships after damage from storms bid hostile natives.

Empty-handed, the migrant returned to Spain, where significant died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas, nor was fiasco even the first European give somebody the job of visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland and Newfoundland implement the 11th century.)

However, his cruise kicked off centuries of enquiry and exploitation on the Denizen continents.

The Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and prerequisite across cultures. Old World corn became an American food requisite. African coffee and Asian dulcify cane became cash crops appropriate Latin America, while American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is remembered as a grit and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet fulfil actions also unleashed changes become absent-minded would eventually devastate the wild populations he and his double explorers encountered.

Citation Information

Article Title

Christopher Columbus

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/christopher-columbus

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Cram Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Promulgated Date

November 9, 2009