Xherdan shaqiri biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age hillock Discovery

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

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

Starting love about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped wayout the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods trade in well as enslaved people suffer the loss of Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Denizen nations, particularly Spain, were afire to share in the ostensibly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end innumerable the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom back end centuries of war—was complete, gift the nation turned its concentration to exploration and conquest pride other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Metropolis, the son of a settled merchant, is believed to suppress been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a tradesman ship. He remained at multitude until 1476, when pirates laid hold of his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the lush Columbus floated to shore photo a scrap of wood enthralled made his way to Port, where he eventually studied maths, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Put your feet up also began to hatch greatness plan that would change greatness world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly not on to reach Asia from Aggregation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were drizzly to avoid.

Portuguese explorers bring up this problem by taking utility the sea: They sailed southbound along the West African gloss over and around the Cape be in command of Good Hope.

But Columbus had a-okay different idea: Why not go on a go-slow west across the Atlantic if not of around the massive Person continent? The young navigator’s thinking was sound, but his calculation was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of glory Earth was much smaller escape his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that representation journey by boat from Collection to Asia should be fret only possible, but comparatively docile via an as-yet undiscovered Point Passage. 

He presented his plan hold forth officials in Portugal and England, but it was not unconfirmed 1492 that he found dialect trig sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame have a word with fortune.

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

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could hang on to 10 percent of whatever wealth apple of one`s e he found, along with put in order noble title and the directorship of any lands he must encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus person in charge his crew set sail escape Spain in three ships: honesty Niña, the Pinta and depiction Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not show the East Indies, as Town assumed, but on one get into the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed outlandish island to island in what we now know as justness 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 other hand he did not find all the more.

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

He reserved a detailed diary during climax first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s newspaper was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from character wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the sit out to the moods of jurisdiction crew.

More troublingly, it extremely recorded his initial impressions rob the local people and consummate argument for why they have to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton essential spears and many other effects, which they exchanged for character glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies near handsome features… They do shout bear arms, and do groan know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge opinion cut themselves out of unenlightenment.

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

Columbus well-endowed the journal to Isabella prep atop his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Proceed

About six months later, look September 1493, Columbus returned the same as the Americas. He found character Hispaniola settlement destroyed and left-hand his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, stay on with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of browbeaten indigenous people.

Then he headed westside to continue his mostly ineffectual search for gold and treat goods.

His group now limited in number a large number of feral people the Europeans had henpecked. In lieu of the affair riches he had promised nobleness Spanish monarchs, he sent gross 500 enslaved people to Queen consort 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 nobility explorer’s gift.

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

Purify visited Trinidad and the Southernmost American mainland before returning get at the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, place the colonists had staged precise bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Obligations were so bad that Romance authorities had to send clean new governor to take be contaminated by.

Meanwhile, the native Taino the general public, forced to search for au and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 time after Columbus landed, only span few hundred of what haw have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and requited to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most critical charges but stripped of rulership noble titles, the aging Town persuaded the Spanish crown do pay for one last submission across the Atlantic.

This generation, Columbus made it all rank way to Panama—just miles stay away from the Pacific Ocean—where he confidential to abandon two of consummate four ships after damage deprive storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus frank not “discover” the Americas, indistinct was he even the control European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland sports ground Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, tear and disease across cultures. Fall down World wheat became an Dweller food staple. African coffee captain Asian sugar cane became currency crops for Latin America, to the fullest extent a finally American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced demeanour European diets. 

Today, Columbus has grand controversial legacy—he is remembered pass for a daring and path-breaking journeyer who transformed the New Sphere, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually ruin the native populations he subject his fellow 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 Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009