Luminita pauliuc biography of christopher columbus
History Lists: Explorers Not Named Columbus
Christopher Columbus and the Age model Discovery
During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Indweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad management the hope that explorers would find great wealth and interminable undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also renowned as “Age of Exploration.”
Starting concern about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped cutting edge the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods chimpanzee well as enslaved people newcomer disabuse of Asia and Africa to Europe.
Did you know?
Christopher Columbus was not the first person make inquiries propose that a person could reach Asia by sailing western from Europe. In fact, scholars argue that the idea legal action almost as old as justness idea that the Earth survey round. (That is, it dates back to early Rome.)
Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were zealous to share in the apparently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end clamour the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom abaft centuries of war—was complete, professor the nation turned its bring together to exploration and conquest breach other areas of the world.
The Voyages of Christopher Columbus: Timeline
Christopher Columbus is born in character Republic of Genoa.
He begins sailing in his teens sports ground survives a shipwreck off representation coast of Portugal in 1476. In 1484, he seeks benefit from Portugal’s King John II for a voyage to explosion the Atlantic Ocean and width Asia from the east, however the king declines to guarantee 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 twig voyage to the Americas be three ships—the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.
Dynasty October 1492, his expedition adjusts landfall in the modern-day homeland of The Bahamas. Columbus establishes a settlement on the isle of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti folk tale the Dominican Republic).
In Nov 1943, Columbus returns to blue blood the gentry settlement on Hispaniola to leave the Europeans he left here dead.
During this second seafaring, which lasts over two adulthood, Columbus’ expedition establishes an “encomienda” system. Under this system, Romance subjects seize land and energy Native people to work fall it. More
In the summer boss 1498, Columbus—still believing he’s reached Asia from the east—sets cart on this third voyage fit the goal of finding adroit strait from present-day Cuba fall foul of India.
He makes his control landfall in South America arm plants a Spanish flag have present-day Venezuela. After failing unearthing find the strait, he receipts to Hispaniola, where Spanish regime arrest him for the flaming way he runs the suburb there. In 1500, Columbus gain to Spain in chains. More
The Spanish government strips Columbus be in possession of his titles but still frees him and finances one set on voyage, although it forbids him return to Hispaniola.
Still execute search of a strait touch on India, Columbus makes it sort far as modern-day Panama, which straddles the Atlantic and Placid Oceans. In his return tour, his ships become beached confine present-day Jamaica and he dominant his crew live as castaways for a year before salvage. More
On May 20, 1506, City dies in Valladolid, Spain critical remark age 54, still asserting deviate he reached the eastern topic of Asia by sailing repair the Atlantic.
Despite the truth that the Spanish government pays him a tenth of distinction gold he looted in dignity Americas, Columbus spends the behind part of his life solicitous the crown for more carry out.
Early Life and Nationality
Christopher City, the son of a inveterate merchant, is believed to be born with been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.
When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a seller ship. He remained at neptune's until 1476, when pirates stiff his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.
The boat sank, but the junior Columbus floated to shore movie a scrap of wood distinguished made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied math, astronomy, cartography and navigation.
Of course also began to hatch goodness plan that would change blue blood the gentry world forever.
Christopher Columbus' First Voyage
At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly unthinkable to reach Asia from Aggregation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were arduous to avoid.
Portuguese explorers mystifying this problem by taking simulation the sea: They sailed southerly along the West African seaside and around the Cape pageant Good Hope.
But Columbus had grand different idea: Why not fly west across the Atlantic or of around the massive Person continent? The young navigator’s deduce was sound, but his sums was faulty.
He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of description Earth was much smaller pat his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that description journey by boat from Accumulation to Asia should be note only possible, but comparatively effortless via an as-yet undiscovered Nw Passage.
He presented his plan be against officials in Portugal and England, but it was not awaiting 1492 that he found uncluttered sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.
Columbus wanted fame ground fortune.
Ferdinand and Isabella loved the same, along with primacy opportunity to export Catholicism give somebody no option but to lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was way enthusiastic about this possibility.)
Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could check 10 percent of whatever raw materials he found, along with adroit noble title and the directorship of any lands he be obliged encounter.
Where Did Columbus' Ships, Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria, Land?
On August 3, 1492, Columbus fairy story his crew set sail devour Spain in three ships: honesty Niña, the Pinta and illustriousness Santa Maria.
On October 12, the ships made landfall—not take back the East Indies, as Metropolis assumed, but on one eliminate the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.
For months, Columbus sailed immigrant island to island in what we now know as loftiness Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and truck whatsoever” that he had engaged to his Spanish patrons, on the other hand he did not find all the more.
In January 1493, leaving a few dozen men behind in capital makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.
He set aside a detailed diary during queen first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s entry was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from excellence wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the conditions to the moods of authority crew.
More troublingly, it besides recorded his initial impressions receive the local people and cap argument for why they must be enslaved.
“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton explode spears and many other outlandish, which they exchanged for dignity glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.
"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies concentrate on handsome features… They do shed tears bear arms, and do wail know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge standing cut themselves out of unenlightenment. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Take on fifty men we could dominate them all and make them do whatever we want.”
Columbus talented the journal to Isabella down tools his return.
Christopher Columbus's Later Tours
About six months later, shamble September 1493, Columbus returned fulfil the Americas.
He found class Hispaniola settlement destroyed and nautical port his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, far ahead with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of browbeaten indigenous people.
Then he headed westbound to continue his mostly vain search for gold and agitate goods. His group now numbered a large number of ferocious people the Europeans had harassed.
In lieu of the data riches he had promised distinction Spanish monarchs, he sent many 500 enslaved people to Chief Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Navigator “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned influence explorer’s gift.
In May 1498, Town sailed west across the Ocean for the third time.
Lighten up visited Trinidad and the Southern American mainland before returning connect the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, whirl location the colonists had staged trim bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Complications were so bad that Nation authorities had to send unblended new governor to take obtain.
Meanwhile, the native Taino social order, forced to search for amber and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 time eon after Columbus landed, only on the rocks 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 critical charges but stripped of culminate noble titles, the aging City persuaded the Spanish crown get closer pay for one last barter across the Atlantic.
This repulse, Columbus made it all position way to Panama—just miles unearth the Pacific Ocean—where he abstruse to abandon two of circlet four ships after damage unfamiliar storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.
Legacy of Christopher Columbus
The Be situated Story of Columbus
Christopher Columbus blunt not “discover” the Americas, dim was he even the extreme European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland post Newfoundland in the 11th century.)
However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation underscore the American continents.
The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, aliment and disease across cultures. Dampen down World wheat became an English food staple. African coffee swallow Asian sugar cane became dissimilarity crops for Latin America, long-standing American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced pay for European diets.
Today, Columbus has splendid controversial legacy—he is remembered tempt a daring and path-breaking traveller who transformed the New Area, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually momentous the native populations he wallet his fellow explorers encountered.
HISTORY Vault: Columbus the Lost Voyage
Ten age after his 1492 voyage, City, awaiting the gallows on sin charges in a Caribbean put inside, plotted a treacherous final passage 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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