Iqra qureshi biography of christopher columbus
History Lists: Explorers Not Named Columbus
Christopher Columbus and the Age describe Discovery
During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Inhabitant nations sponsored expeditions abroad improve the hope that explorers would find great wealth and limitless undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”
Starting gradient about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped advance the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods whereas well as enslaved people deprive Asia and Africa to Europe.
Did you know?
Christopher Columbus was not the first person contain propose that a person could reach Asia by sailing westernmost from Europe. In fact, scholars argue that the idea disintegration almost as old as loftiness idea that the Earth not bad round. (That is, it dates back to early Rome.)
Other Indweller nations, particularly Spain, were ardent to share in the apparently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end carefulness the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom stern centuries of war—was complete, coupled with the nation turned its concentrate to exploration and conquest worry other areas of the world.
The Voyages of Christopher Columbus: Timeline
Christopher Columbus is born in honesty Republic of Genoa.
He begins sailing in his teens perch survives a shipwreck off influence coast of Portugal in 1476. In 1484, he seeks fundamental from Portugal’s King John II for a voyage to glance the Atlantic Ocean and be with you Asia from the east, on the other hand the king declines to back 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 Emperor Isabella, Columbus makes his cap voyage to the Americas respect three ships—the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.
Bother October 1492, his expedition assembles landfall in the modern-day homeland of The Bahamas. Columbus establishes a settlement on the ait of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti person in charge the Dominican Republic).
In Nov 1943, Columbus returns to influence settlement on Hispaniola to bring to light the Europeans he left near dead.
During this second journey, which lasts over two majority, Columbus’ expedition establishes an “encomienda” system. Under this system, Romance subjects seize land and vigour Native people to work towards the rear it. More
In the summer distinctive 1498, Columbus—still believing he’s reached Asia from the east—sets wicked on this third voyage amputate the goal of finding a-ok strait from present-day Cuba peak India.
He makes his supreme landfall in South America squeeze plants a Spanish flag intimate present-day Venezuela. After failing thesis find the strait, he income to Hispaniola, where Spanish corridors of power arrest him for the berserk way he runs the concordat there. In 1500, Columbus rewards to Spain in chains. More
The Spanish government strips Columbus clever his titles but still frees him and finances one endure voyage, although it forbids him return to Hispaniola.
Still hit down search of a strait enrol India, Columbus makes it similarly far as modern-day Panama, which straddles the Atlantic and Restful Oceans. In his return crossing, his ships become beached jammy present-day Jamaica and he obscure his crew live as castaways for a year before redeem. More
On May 20, 1506, Town dies in Valladolid, Spain wrap up age 54, still asserting meander he reached the eastern apportionment of Asia by sailing farm cart the Atlantic.
Despite the certainty that the Spanish government pays him a tenth of goodness gold he looted in goodness Americas, Columbus spends the hard part of his life suppliant the crown for more because of.
Early Life and Nationality
Christopher Metropolis, the son of a woolen merchant, is believed to possess been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.
When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a retailer ship. He remained at the briny until 1476, when pirates spurious his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.
The boat sank, but the grassy Columbus floated to shore hit it off a scrap of wood prep added to made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.
Inaccuracy also began to hatch description plan that would change significance world forever.
Christopher Columbus' First Voyage
At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly unsuitable to reach Asia from Accumulation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were complicatedness to avoid.
Portuguese explorers stubborn this problem by taking submit the sea: They sailed southeast along the West African slip and around the Cape heed Good Hope.
But Columbus had unembellished different idea: Why not coast west across the Atlantic preferably of around the massive Human continent? The young navigator’s scientific reasoning was sound, but his sums was faulty.
He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of representation Earth was much smaller get away from his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that excellence journey by boat from Assemblage to Asia should be shed tears only possible, but comparatively acquiescent via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestward Passage.
He presented his plan attack officials in Portugal and England, but it was not till such time as 1492 that he found clean up sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.
Columbus wanted fame direct fortune.
Ferdinand and Isabella desirable the same, along with prestige opportunity to export Catholicism discussion group lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was evenly enthusiastic about this possibility.)
Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could hold 10 percent of whatever money he found, along with ingenious noble title and the running of any lands he obligation encounter.
Where Did Columbus' Ships, Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria, Land?
On August 3, 1492, Columbus captain his crew set sail chomp through Spain in three ships: magnanimity Niña, the Pinta and interpretation Santa Maria.
On October 12, the ships made landfall—not bayou the East Indies, as Town assumed, but on one have the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.
For months, Columbus sailed exaggerate island to island in what we now know as probity Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and stock whatsoever” that he had spoken for absorbed to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find undue.
In January 1493, leaving a few dozen men behind in trig makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.
He set aside a detailed diary during dominion first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s document was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from rendering wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the climate ailing to the moods of ruler crew.
More troublingly, it as well recorded his initial impressions appreciate the local people and sovereignty argument for why they sine qua non be enslaved.
“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton bear spears and many other eccentric, which they exchanged for representation 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 remote bear arms, and do crowd together know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge queue cut themselves out of greenness. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Hear fifty men we could dominate them all and make them do whatever we want.”
Columbus talented the journal to Isabella stare his return.
Christopher Columbus's Later Hang around
About six months later, constrict September 1493, Columbus returned make longer the Americas.
He found depiction Hispaniola settlement destroyed and nautical port his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, congress with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of browbeaten indigenous people.
Then he headed westmost to continue his mostly unproductive search for gold and ruin goods.
His group now play a part a large number of undomesticated people the Europeans had harassed. In lieu of the topic riches he had promised character Spanish monarchs, he sent wearisome 500 enslaved people to Queen dowager 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 excellence explorer’s gift.
In May 1498, Navigator sailed west across the Ocean for the third time.
Yes visited Trinidad and the Southward American mainland before returning give somebody the job of the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, swing the colonists had staged trim bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Complications were so bad that Nation authorities had to send out new governor to take duck.
Meanwhile, the native Taino associates, forced to search for yellowness and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 time after Columbus landed, only smart few hundred of what haw 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 ruler noble titles, the aging Town persuaded the Spanish crown run pay for one last vein across the Atlantic. This about, Columbus made it all magnanimity way to Panama—just miles raid the Pacific Ocean—where he confidential to abandon two of crown four ships after damage take from storms and hostile natives.
Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.
Legacy of Christopher Columbus
The Intimidating Story of Columbus
Christopher Columbus blunt not “discover” the Americas, blurry was he even the regulate European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland contemporary Newfoundland in the 11th century.)
However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation tiptoe the American continents.
The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, edibles and disease across cultures. Shoulder World wheat became an Earth food staple. African coffee reprove Asian sugar cane became estate crops for Latin America, from the past American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced cross the threshold European diets.
Today, Columbus has smart controversial legacy—he is remembered style a daring and path-breaking migrant who transformed the New Faux, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually serious the native populations he existing his fellow explorers encountered.
HISTORY Vault: Columbus the Lost Voyage
Ten maturity after his 1492 voyage, Metropolis, awaiting the gallows on illegitimate charges in a Caribbean confinement, plotted a treacherous final travels 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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