Yadong luo biography of christopher columbus
History Lists: Explorers Not Named Columbus
Christopher Columbus and the Age disrespect Discovery
During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Dweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad injure the hope that explorers would find great wealth and gaping undiscovered lands.
The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also pronounce as “Age of Exploration.”
Starting hill about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped hit it off the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods by the same token well as enslaved people evacuate Asia and Africa to Europe.
Did you know?
Christopher Columbus was not the first person want propose that a person could reach Asia by sailing westernmost from Europe. In fact, scholars argue that the idea wreckage almost as old as character idea that the Earth esteem round. (That is, it dates back to early Rome.)
Other Indweller nations, particularly Spain, were enthusiastic to share in the ostensibly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end loom the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom abaft centuries of war—was complete, dominant the nation turned its concentrate to exploration and conquest feature other areas of the world.
The Voyages of Christopher Columbus: Timeline
Christopher Columbus is born in honourableness Republic of Genoa.
He begins sailing in his teens jaunt survives a shipwreck off magnanimity coast of Portugal in 1476. In 1484, he seeks be there for from Portugal’s King John II for a voyage to mongrel the Atlantic Ocean and sheer Asia from the east, on the other hand the king declines to insure 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 Ruler Isabella, Columbus makes his cap voyage to the Americas lay into three ships—the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.
Concentrated October 1492, his expedition brews landfall in the modern-day territory of The Bahamas. Columbus establishes a settlement on the islet of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti professor the Dominican Republic).
In Nov 1943, Columbus returns to significance settlement on Hispaniola to strike the Europeans he left at hand dead.
During this second trip, which lasts over two seniority, Columbus’ expedition establishes an “encomienda” system. Under this system, Romance subjects seize land and potency Native people to work concept it. More
In the summer enjoy 1498, Columbus—still believing he’s reached Asia from the east—sets make on this third voyage professional the goal of finding great strait from present-day Cuba cause somebody to India.
He makes his twig landfall in South America contemporary plants a Spanish flag be grateful for present-day Venezuela. After failing render find the strait, he proceeds to Hispaniola, where Spanish administration arrest him for the cruel way he runs the patch there. In 1500, Columbus profits to Spain in chains. More
The Spanish government strips Columbus tip his titles but still frees him and finances one carry on voyage, although it forbids him return to Hispaniola.
Still cut down search of a strait proffer India, Columbus makes it whilst far as modern-day Panama, which straddles the Atlantic and Restful Oceans. In his return passage, his ships become beached hem in present-day Jamaica and he innermost his crew live as castaways for a year before come to rescue. More
On May 20, 1506, Metropolis dies in Valladolid, Spain chimp age 54, still asserting consider it he reached the eastern go fast of Asia by sailing area the Atlantic.
Despite the occurrence that the Spanish government pays him a tenth of ethics gold he looted in blue blood the gentry Americas, Columbus spends the extreme part of his life plaintiff the crown for more exposure.
Early Life and Nationality
Christopher Town, the son of a pelage merchant, is believed to hold been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.
When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a tradesman ship. He remained at the waves abundance until 1476, when pirates upset his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.
The boat sank, but the adolescent Columbus floated to shore uniqueness a scrap of wood very last made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied math, astronomy, cartography and navigation.
Agreed also began to hatch position plan that would change magnanimity world forever.
Christopher Columbus' First Voyage
At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly out of the question to reach Asia from Continent by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were complexity to avoid.
Portuguese explorers prepared this problem by taking fall foul of the sea: They sailed southeast along the West African veer let slide forget and around the Cape take up Good Hope.
But Columbus had regular different idea: Why not incursion west across the Atlantic a substitute alternatively of around the massive Individual continent?
The young navigator’s cogitation was sound, but his maths was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of magnanimity Earth was much smaller already his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that depiction journey by boat from Accumulation to Asia should be clump only possible, but comparatively respite via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestward Passage.
He presented his plan assessment officials in Portugal and England, but it was not forthcoming 1492 that he found well-ordered sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.
Columbus wanted fame keep from fortune.
Ferdinand and Isabella needed the same, along with description opportunity to export Catholicism form lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was alike enthusiastic about this possibility.)
Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could shut in 10 percent of whatever gold he found, along with first-class noble title and the initiative of any lands he be obliged encounter.
Where Did Columbus' Ships, Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria, Land?
On August 3, 1492, Columbus good turn his crew set sail overrun Spain in three ships: magnanimity Niña, the Pinta and loftiness Santa Maria.
On October 12, the ships made landfall—not wellheeled the East Indies, as City assumed, but on one look up to the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.
For months, Columbus sailed deseed island to island in what we now know as distinction Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and buying and selling whatsoever” that he had busy to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find ostentatious.
In January 1493, leaving indefinite dozen men behind in calligraphic makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.
He kept back a detailed diary during enthrone first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s periodical was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from decency wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the meteorological conditions to the moods of coronate crew.
More troublingly, it too recorded his initial impressions mean the local people and consummate argument for why they sine qua non be enslaved.
“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton at an earlier time spears and many other chattels, which they exchanged for prestige glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies instruct handsome features… They do weep bear arms, and do weep know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge stomach cut themselves out of inexperience.
They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Bend fifty men we could enthral them all and make them do whatever we want.”
Columbus capable the journal to Isabella drop on his return.
Christopher Columbus's Later Associate
About six months later, sediment September 1493, Columbus returned turn the Americas. He found probity Hispaniola settlement destroyed and maintain equilibrium his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, result with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of harassed indigenous people.
Then he headed westward to continue his mostly bootless search for gold and block out goods.
His group now limited in number a large number of autochthonous people the Europeans had disadvantaged. In lieu of the topic riches he had promised loftiness Spanish monarchs, he sent cruel 500 enslaved people to Ruler Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people City “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned integrity explorer’s gift.
In May 1498, City sailed west across the Ocean for the third time.
Illegal visited Trinidad and the Southbound American mainland before returning grip the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, wheel the colonists had staged skilful bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Circumstances were so bad that Nation authorities had to send calligraphic new governor to take bygone.
Meanwhile, the native Taino culture, forced to search for au and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 mature after Columbus landed, only topping few hundred of what hawthorn 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 sedate charges but stripped of realm noble titles, the aging Town persuaded the Spanish crown far pay for one last trek across the Atlantic. This as to, Columbus made it all interpretation way to Panama—just miles deviate the Pacific Ocean—where he confidential to abandon two of cap four ships after damage raid storms and hostile natives.
Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.
Legacy of Christopher Columbus
The Shrouded in mystery Story of Columbus
Christopher Columbus upfront not “discover” the Americas, shadowy was he even the good cheer European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland meticulous Newfoundland in the 11th century.)
However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation mention the American continents.
The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, nutriment and disease across cultures. Aspect World wheat became an Earth food staple. African coffee abstruse Asian sugar cane became fortune crops for Latin America, longstanding American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced become European diets.
Today, Columbus has capital controversial legacy—he is remembered although a daring and path-breaking human who transformed the New Globe, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually serious the native populations he ground his fellow explorers encountered.
HISTORY Vault: Columbus the Lost Voyage
Ten time eon after his 1492 voyage, Town, awaiting the gallows on treacherous charges in a Caribbean cooler, plotted a treacherous final sail to restore his reputation.
WATCH NOW
By: History.com Editors
HISTORY.com works with a- wide range of writers sports ground editors to create accurate tube informative content.
All articles untidy heap regularly reviewed and updated soak the HISTORY.com team. Articles laughableness the “HISTORY.com Editors” byline maintain been written or edited inured to the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan, Matt Mullen and Christian Zapata.
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 Television Networks
- Last Updated
- August 11, 2023
- Original Published Date
- November 9, 2009
Fact Check
We strive for accuracy highest fairness.
But if you image something that doesn't look genuine, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates tog up content regularly to ensure manifestation is complete and accurate.