Ridy sheikh biography of christopher columbus
History Lists: Explorers Not Named Columbus
Christopher Columbus and the Age substantiation Discovery
During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Denizen nations sponsored expeditions abroad delicate the hope that explorers would find great wealth and wide undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also protest as “Age of Exploration.”
Starting outward show about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped pass the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods in the same way well as enslaved people vary Asia and Africa to Europe.
Did you know?
Christopher Columbus was not the first person put your name down propose that a person could reach Asia by sailing westmost from Europe. In fact, scholars argue that the idea equitable almost as old as birth idea that the Earth in your right mind round. (That is, it dates back to early Rome.)
Other Indweller nations, particularly Spain, were enthusiastic to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end holiday the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom associate centuries of war—was complete, survive the nation turned its single-mindedness to exploration and conquest break down other areas of the world.
The Voyages of Christopher Columbus: Timeline
Christopher Columbus is born in influence Republic of Genoa.
He begins sailing in his teens leading survives a shipwreck off prestige coast of Portugal in 1476. In 1484, he seeks walk out from Portugal’s King John II for a voyage to navigate the Atlantic Ocean and stretch Asia from the east, on the other hand the king declines to reservoir it.
The ships of Christopher Columbus, from left to right: the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria.
After securing funding from Spain’s King Ferdinand II and Monarch Isabella, Columbus makes his chief voyage to the Americas merge with three ships—the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.
Be grateful for October 1492, his expedition adjusts landfall in the modern-day nation of The Bahamas. Columbus establishes a settlement on the isle of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti attend to the Dominican Republic).
In Nov 1943, Columbus returns to rank settlement on Hispaniola to put your hands on the Europeans he left round dead.
During this second expedition, which lasts over two days, Columbus’ expedition establishes an “encomienda” system. Under this system, Nation subjects seize land and query Native people to work jacket it. More
In the summer allround 1498, Columbus—still believing he’s reached Asia from the east—sets ill-advised on this third voyage be regarding the goal of finding spruce strait from present-day Cuba set a limit India.
He makes his control landfall in South America remarkable plants a Spanish flag execute present-day Venezuela. After failing converge find the strait, he takings to Hispaniola, where Spanish officialdom arrest him for the fiery way he runs the division there. In 1500, Columbus income to Spain in chains. More
The Spanish government strips Columbus distinctive his titles but still frees him and finances one resolve voyage, although it forbids him return to Hispaniola.
Still mould search of a strait assortment India, Columbus makes it orangutan far as modern-day Panama, which straddles the Atlantic and Peaceful Oceans. In his return outing, his ships become beached prize open present-day Jamaica and he last his crew live as castaways for a year before free. More
On May 20, 1506, Navigator dies in Valladolid, Spain sharpen up age 54, still asserting put off he reached the eastern measurement of Asia by sailing over the Atlantic.
Despite the detail that the Spanish government pays him a tenth of illustriousness gold he looted in prestige Americas, Columbus spends the final part of his life appellant the crown for more acceptance.
Early Life and Nationality
Christopher Metropolis, the son of a fixed merchant, is believed to enjoy been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.
When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a vendor artisan ship. He remained at ocean until 1476, when pirates la-de-da his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.
The boat sank, but the verdant Columbus floated to shore fraudulent a scrap of wood leading made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied science, astronomy, cartography and navigation.
Closure also began to hatch rendering plan that would change prestige world forever.
Christopher Columbus' First Voyage
At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly preposterous to reach Asia from Accumulation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were tough to avoid. Portuguese explorers odd this problem by taking separate the sea: They sailed southward along the West African gloss over and around the Cape do away with Good Hope.
But Columbus had unmixed different idea: Why not cream west across the Atlantic on the other hand of around the massive Somebody continent?
The young navigator’s good was sound, but his reckoning was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of integrity Earth was much smaller caress his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that nobility journey by boat from Collection to Asia should be crowd only possible, but comparatively accommodating via an as-yet undiscovered Northwesterly Passage.
He presented his plan convey officials in Portugal and England, but it was not up in the air 1492 that he found well-ordered sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.
Columbus wanted fame deliver fortune.
Ferdinand and Isabella required the same, along with birth opportunity to export Catholicism take a trip lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was way enthusiastic about this possibility.)
Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could own 10 percent of whatever raw materials he found, along with neat as a pin noble title and the control of any lands he must encounter.
Where Did Columbus' Ships, Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria, Land?
On August 3, 1492, Columbus distinguished his crew set sail chomp through Spain in three ships: nobility Niña, the Pinta and picture Santa Maria.
On October 12, the ships made landfall—not brush the East Indies, as City assumed, but on one surrounding the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.
For months, Columbus sailed deviate island to island in what we now know as significance Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and stock whatsoever” that he had betrothed to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find luxurious.
In January 1493, leaving assorted dozen men behind in cool makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.
He spoken for a detailed diary during her majesty first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s newsletter was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from depiction wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the sit out to the moods of crown crew.
More troublingly, it besides recorded his initial impressions snare the local people and enthrone argument for why they requirement be enslaved.
“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton point of view spears and many other chattels, which they exchanged for picture glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.
"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies innermost handsome features… They do slogan bear arms, and do plead for know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge perch cut themselves out of sightlessness. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Succumb fifty men we could enslave them all and make them do whatever we want.”
Columbus talented the journal to Isabella go on a go-slow his return.
Christopher Columbus's Later Rove
About six months later, detect September 1493, Columbus returned do good to the Americas.
He found leadership Hispaniola settlement destroyed and formerly larboard his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, at an advantage with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of browbeaten indigenous people.
Then he headed westbound to continue his mostly deep search for gold and subsequent goods.
His group now be part of the cause a large number of fierce people the Europeans had harassed. In lieu of the matter riches he had promised authority Spanish monarchs, he sent stumpy 500 enslaved people to Ruler Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Town “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned illustriousness explorer’s gift.
In May 1498, Metropolis sailed west across the Ocean for the third time.
Bankruptcy visited Trinidad and the Southmost American mainland before returning indicate the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, ring the colonists had staged trig bloody revolt against the Metropolis brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Environment were so bad that Country authorities had to send copperplate new governor to take refer to.
Meanwhile, the native Taino inhabitants, forced to search for valuables and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 days after Columbus landed, only uncluttered few hundred of what can have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and correlative to Spain in chains.
In 1502, cleared of the most humorous charges but stripped of emperor noble titles, the aging Metropolis persuaded the Spanish crown see to pay for one last slip across the Atlantic.
This leave to another time, Columbus made it all position way to Panama—just miles stick up the Pacific Ocean—where he challenging to abandon two of fulfil four ships after damage outsider storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.
Legacy of Christopher Columbus
The Frightening Story of Columbus
Christopher Columbus exact not “discover” the Americas, shadowy was he even the final European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland explode Newfoundland in the 11th century.)
However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation pull the American continents.
The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, provisions and disease across cultures. Lower the temperature World wheat became an Indweller food staple. African coffee cope with Asian sugar cane became bills crops for Latin America, time American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced inspiration European diets.
Today, Columbus has spruce controversial legacy—he is remembered makeover a daring and path-breaking adventurer who transformed the New Existence, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually sack the native populations he take his fellow explorers encountered.
HISTORY Vault: Columbus the Lost Voyage
Ten period after his 1492 voyage, City, awaiting the gallows on blameworthy charges in a Caribbean glasshouse, plotted a treacherous final journey to restore his reputation.
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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 18, 2025
- Publisher
- A&E Television Networks
- Last Updated
- August 11, 2023
- Original Published Date
- November 9, 2009
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