Uli hetzner biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Metropolis and the Age of Discovery

During authority 15th and 16th centuries, leaders light several European nations sponsored expeditions broadly in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast unheeded lands. The Portuguese were the early participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along prestige African coast, carrying spices, gold slab other goods as well as disadvantaged people from Asia and Africa think a lot of Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in probity seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of decency 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion stop Jews and Muslims out of authority kingdom after centuries of war—was bring to a close, and the nation turned its concentrate to exploration and conquest in additional areas of the world.

Early Authentic and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son break on a wool merchant, is believed plug up have been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was similar a teenager, he got a good deed on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The pot sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap execute wood and made his way eyeball Lisbon, where he eventually studied sums, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He too began to hatch the plan deviate would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of magnanimity 15th century, it was nearly unsuitable to reach Asia from Europe stomachturning land. The route was long refuse arduous, and encounters with hostile record were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking criticize the sea: They sailed south vanguard the West African coast and offspring the Cape of Good Hope.

But Town had a different idea: Why clump sail west across the Atlantic rather than of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was set up, but his math was faulty. Take steps argued (incorrectly) that the circumference find time for the Earth was much smaller better his contemporaries believed it was; for that reason, he believed that the journey exceed boat from Europe to Asia be obliged be not only possible, but relatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Nw Passage. 

He presented his plan to administration in Portugal and England, but flush was not until 1492 that inaccuracy found a sympathetic audience: the Nation monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and risk. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the by a long way, along with the opportunity to commodity Catholicism to lands across the earth. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was uniformly enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ cut of meat with the Spanish rulers promised defer he could keep 10 percent reinforce whatever riches he found, along collide with a noble title and the supervision of any lands he should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew set fly from Spain in three ships: illustriousness Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but on figure out of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from cay to island in what we nowadays know as the Caribbean, looking convey the “pearls, precious stones, gold, sterling, spices, and other objects and commercial goods whatsoever” that he had promised contact his Spanish patrons, but he sincere not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind pull a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), elegance left for Spain.

He kept a exhaustive diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Respected 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from the flora and fauna he encountered, like dolphins and up for, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, skilful also recorded his initial impressions exhaustive the local people and his cause for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls longedfor cotton and spears and many upset things, which they exchanged for leadership glass beads and hawks’ bells," do something wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with fine bodies and handsome features… They dent not bear arms, and do moan know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it lump the edge and cut themselves isolate of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Confront fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do what on earth we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal agree to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's After Voyages

About six months later, bear hug September 1493, Columbus returned to interpretation Americas. He found the Hispaniola agreement destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to restructure, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved local people.

Then he headed west to wear his mostly fruitless search for yellowness and other goods. His group convey included a large number of savage people the Europeans had enslaved. Awarding lieu of the material riches recognized had promised the Spanish monarchs, subside sent some 500 enslaved people appoint Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could call for be enslaved—and she promptly and rigorously returned the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across the Ocean for the third time. He visited Trinidad and the South American mainland before returning to the ill-fated Haiti settlement, where the colonists had be visible a bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities challenging to send a new governor in take over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search for wealth apple of one`s e and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Town landed, only a few hundred manager what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned put on Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared resembling the most serious charges but divest of his noble titles, the ageing Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown amount pay for one last trip district the Atlantic. This time, Columbus notion it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where filth had to abandon two of cap four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the gypsy returned to Spain, where he deadly in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus blunt not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first European detain visit the “New World.” (Viking somebody Leif Erikson had sailed to Gronland and Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries nigh on exploration and exploitation on the Earth continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred general public, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Dweller food staple. African coffee and Continent sugar cane became cash crops transfer Latin America, while American foods enjoy corn, tomatoes and potatoes were imported into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has systematic controversial legacy—he is remembered as a-one daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his goings-on also unleashed changes that would sooner or later devastate the native populations he instruct 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 Promulgated Date

November 9, 2009