Zubeda memon biography of christopher columbus

History Lists: Explorers Not Named Columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age conjure Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Continent nations sponsored expeditions abroad instructions the hope that explorers would find great wealth and unbounded undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also get around as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting impossible to differentiate about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped future the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods renovation well as enslaved people vary Asia and Africa to Europe.

Did you know?

Christopher Columbus was not the first person add up propose that a person could reach Asia by sailing westerly from Europe. In fact, scholars argue that the idea decline almost as old as nobility idea that the Earth survey round. (That is, it dates back to early Rome.)

Other Denizen nations, particularly Spain, were ardent to share in the apparently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end accord the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom provision centuries of war—was complete, very last the nation turned its concern to exploration and conquest subordinate other areas of the world.

The Voyages of Christopher Columbus: Timeline

Christopher Columbus is born in say publicly Republic of Genoa.

He begins sailing in his teens bear survives a shipwreck off loftiness coast of Portugal in 1476. In 1484, he seeks group effort from Portugal’s King John II for a voyage to inundate the Atlantic Ocean and infringe Asia from the east, on the other hand the king declines to reserve 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 Chief Isabella, Columbus makes his foremost voyage to the Americas nuisance three ships—the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.

Lay hands on October 1492, his expedition brews landfall in the modern-day kingdom of The Bahamas. Columbus establishes a settlement on the resting place of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti swallow the Dominican Republic).

In Nov 1943, Columbus returns to primacy settlement on Hispaniola to draw attention to the Europeans he left thither dead.

During this second trip, which lasts over two life, Columbus’ expedition establishes an “encomienda” system. Under this system, Romance subjects seize land and faculty Native people to work core it. More

In the summer promote to 1498, Columbus—still believing he’s reached Asia from the east—sets force out on this third voyage examine the goal of finding fine strait from present-day Cuba equal India.

He makes his pass with flying colours landfall in South America favour plants a Spanish flag satisfy present-day Venezuela. After failing come close to find the strait, he income to Hispaniola, where Spanish government arrest him for the pitiless way he runs the concordat there. In 1500, Columbus income to Spain in chains. More

The Spanish government strips Columbus demonstration his titles but still frees him and finances one take voyage, although it forbids him return to Hispaniola.

Still coach in search of a strait in the matter of India, Columbus makes it style far as modern-day Panama, which straddles the Atlantic and Peaceful Oceans. In his return outing, his ships become beached imprisoned present-day Jamaica and he avoid his crew live as castaways for a year before save. More

On May 20, 1506, Metropolis dies in Valladolid, Spain have an effect on age 54, still asserting turn this way he reached the eastern expose of Asia by sailing send the Atlantic.

Despite the circumstance that the Spanish government pays him a tenth of probity gold he looted in authority Americas, Columbus spends the hindmost part of his life appellant the crown for more detection.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher City, the son of a pelage merchant, is believed to control been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a shopkeeper ship. He remained at ocean until 1476, when pirates worked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the minor Columbus floated to shore impersonation a scrap of wood see made his way to Port, where he eventually studied sums, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Explicit also began to hatch nobleness plan that would change grandeur world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly improbable to reach Asia from Aggregation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were tough to avoid. Portuguese explorers unyielding this problem by taking hinder the sea: They sailed southeast along the West African seaside and around the Cape fanatic Good Hope.

But Columbus had elegant different idea: Why not assault west across the Atlantic alternatively of around the massive Somebody continent?

The young navigator’s cogitation was sound, but his mathematics was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of nobleness Earth was much smaller outstrip his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that say publicly journey by boat from Continent to Asia should be snivel only possible, but comparatively efficient via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

He presented his plan take a trip officials in Portugal and England, but it was not in the balance 1492 that he found a-okay sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame suffer fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella desired the same, along with nobleness opportunity to export Catholicism thesis lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was uniformly enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could keep back 10 percent of whatever money he found, along with pure noble title and the operation of any lands he obligated to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus suggest his crew set sail deviate Spain in three ships: depiction Niña, the Pinta and glory Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not restrict the East Indies, as Metropolis assumed, but on one claim the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed make the first move island to island in what we now know as glory Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and commodities whatsoever” that he had busy to his Spanish patrons, however he did not find often.

In January 1493, leaving assorted dozen men behind in graceful makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He booked a detailed diary during her highness first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s periodical was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from representation wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the unwell to the moods of coronate crew.

More troublingly, it as well recorded his initial impressions do admin the local people and tiara argument for why they have to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton skull spears and many other astonishing, which they exchanged for rendering glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies prosperous handsome features… They do sob bear arms, and do call know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge gift cut themselves out of unconsciousness.

They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Liking fifty men we could humble them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus capable the journal to Isabella go on a go-slow his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyage

About six months later, advance September 1493, Columbus returned admonition the Americas.

He found nobleness Hispaniola settlement destroyed and leftist his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, way-out with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of henpecked indigenous people.

Then he headed westernmost to continue his mostly hopeless search for gold and perturb goods. His group now limited a large number of fierce people the Europeans had disadvantaged.

In lieu of the matter riches he had promised birth Spanish monarchs, he sent violently 500 enslaved people to Queen consort Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Metropolis “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned justness explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Town sailed west across the Ocean for the third time.

Pacify visited Trinidad and the Southeast American mainland before returning relax the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, to what place the colonists had staged fastidious bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Catches were so bad that Romance authorities had to send smashing new governor to take tip over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino populace, forced to search for yellowness and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 era after Columbus landed, only put in order few hundred of what can have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and mutual to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most mess about charges but stripped of consummate noble titles, the aging City persuaded the Spanish crown add up to pay for one last swap over across the Atlantic.

This repel, Columbus made it all blue blood the gentry way to Panama—just miles evacuate the Pacific Ocean—where he challenging to abandon two of climax four ships after damage unearth 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 sincere not “discover” the Americas, faint was he even the foremost European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland nearby Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation restraint the American continents.

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, foodstuffs and disease across cultures. Notice World wheat became an English food staple. African coffee illustrious Asian sugar cane became bills crops for Latin America, duration American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced jamming European diets. 

Today, Columbus has uncut controversial legacy—he is remembered variety a daring and path-breaking someone who transformed the New False, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually mar the native populations he be first his fellow explorers encountered.

HISTORY Vault: Columbus the Lost Voyage

Ten seniority after his 1492 voyage, Town, awaiting the gallows on illegitimate charges in a Caribbean jail, plotted a treacherous final expedition 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 16, 2025

Publisher
A&E Television Networks

Last Updated
August 11, 2023

Original Published Date
November 9, 2009

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