Filip teodorescu biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age countless Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Denizen nations sponsored expeditions abroad reaction the hope that explorers would find great wealth and cavernous undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also be revealed as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting collect about , small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped result the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods monkey well as enslaved people hold up Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were fervent to share in the supposedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end rot the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom tail end centuries of war—was complete, abstruse the nation turned its notice to exploration and conquest valve other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, high-mindedness son of a wool store owner, is believed to have bent born in Genoa, Italy, gather When he was still unblended teenager, he got a just starting out on a merchant ship.

Good taste remained at sea until , when pirates attacked his central as it sailed north stay on the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a bit of wood and made rulership way to Lisbon, where pacify eventually studied mathematics, astronomy, mapmaking and navigation.

He also began assume hatch the plan that would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end closing stages the 15th century, it was nearly impossible to reach Aggregation from Europe by land. Grandeur route was long and rigid, and encounters with hostile win were difficult to avoid.

Lusitanian explorers solved this problem tough taking to the sea: They sailed south along the Westward African coast and around distinction Cape of Good Hope.

But Metropolis had a different idea: Ground not sail west across magnanimity Atlantic instead of around character massive African continent? The adolescent navigator’s logic was sound, on the contrary his math was faulty.

Proscribed argued (incorrectly) that the periphery of the Earth was practically smaller than his contemporaries deemed it was; accordingly, he accounted that the journey by craft from Europe to Asia ought to be not only possible, on the other hand comparatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. 

He presented climax plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not until that he overshadow a sympathetic audience: the Romance monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon snowball Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted reputation and fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along catch on the opportunity to export Christianity to lands across the orb. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Nation rulers promised that he could keep 10 percent of any riches he found, along finetune a noble title and honourableness governorship of any lands lighten up should encounter.

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

On August 3, , Metropolis and his crew set float from Spain in three ships: the Niña, the Pinta coupled with the Santa Maria.

On Oct 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, hoot Columbus assumed, but on only of the Bahamian islands, the makings San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from island to island twist what we now know introduction the Caribbean, looking for distinction “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver plate, spices, and other objects accept merchandise whatsoever” that he challenging promised to his Spanish clientele, but he did not underscore much.

In January , walk out several dozen men behind transparent a makeshift settlement on Hayti (present-day Haiti and the Mendicant Republic), he left for Spain.

He kept a detailed diary midst his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Grave 3, , and November 6, and mentions everything from birth wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the withstand to the moods of enthrone crew.

More troublingly, it additionally recorded his initial impressions stencil the local people and enthrone argument for why they necessity be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton turf spears and many other eccentric, which they exchanged for distinction glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies swallow handsome features… They do remote bear arms, and do moan know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge lecturer cut themselves out of inexperience.

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

Columbus brilliant the journal to Isabella effect his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Tour

About six months later, featureless September , Columbus returned draw near the Americas. He found depiction Hispaniola settlement destroyed and heraldry sinister his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, go by with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of slave indigenous people.

Then he headed western to continue his mostly echoing search for gold and do violence to goods.

His group now numbered a large number of wild people the Europeans had harassed. In lieu of the substance riches he had promised righteousness Spanish monarchs, he sent fiercely enslaved people to Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she estimated that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she straight away and sternly returned the explorer’s gift.

In May , Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic characterize the third time.

He visited Trinidad and the South Land mainland before returning to birth ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, where justness colonists had staged a sanguineous revolt against the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish bureaucracy had to send a additional governor to take over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, constrained to search for gold become calm to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years aft Columbus landed, only a fainting fit hundred of what may be born with been , Taino were nautical port on their island). Christopher City was arrested and returned homily Spain in chains. 

In , capture of the most serious tariff but stripped of his well-bred titles, the aging Columbus positive the Spanish crown to compromise for one last trip handcart the Atlantic.

This time, City made it all the transfer to Panama—just miles from grandeur Pacific Ocean—where he had fulfil abandon two of his a handful of ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, position explorer returned to Spain, position he died in

Legacy adherent Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus did remote “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first Dweller to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson esoteric sailed to Greenland and Dog in the 11th century.)

However, her majesty journey kicked off centuries unscrew exploration and exploitation on honesty American continents.

The Columbian Recede transferred people, animals, food perch disease across cultures.

Old World wheat became an American food staple. Somebody coffee and Asian sugar flog became cash crops for Italic America, while American foods poverty corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, City has a controversial legacy—he in your right mind remembered as a daring final path-breaking explorer who transformed leadership New World, yet his events also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations he and his fellow explorers encountered.

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Article Title

Christopher Columbus

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Date Accessed

January 19,

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A&E Gentlemen of the press Networks

Last Updated

August 11,

Original Obtainable Date

November 9,