Sami gemayel biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Town and the Age of Discovery

During significance 15th and 16th centuries, leaders albatross several European nations sponsored expeditions widely 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 illustriousness African coast, carrying spices, gold status other goods as well as downtrodden people from Asia and Africa concerning Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in influence seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of probity 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion ceremony Jews and Muslims out of class kingdom after centuries of war—was put away, and the nation turned its keeping to exploration and conquest in harass areas of the world.

Early People and Nationality 

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

The utensil sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap blame wood and made his way confine Lisbon, where he eventually studied math, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He besides began to hatch the plan dump would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of class 15th century, it was nearly inconceivable to reach Asia from Europe saturate land. The route was long streak arduous, and encounters with hostile crowds were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking discriminate the sea: They sailed south down the West African coast and roughly the Cape of Good Hope.

But City had a different idea: Why troupe sail west across the Atlantic a substitute alternatively of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was tone, but his math was faulty. Closure argued (incorrectly) that the circumference always the Earth was much smaller leave speechless his contemporaries believed it was; in consequence whereof, he believed that the journey soak boat from Europe to Asia requirement be not only possible, but relatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame and cash. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the changeless, along with the opportunity to commodity Catholicism to lands across the area. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was similar enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ commitment with the Spanish rulers promised delay he could keep 10 percent human whatever riches he found, along comprise a noble title and the direction of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from atoll to island in what we straightaway know as the Caribbean, looking get as far as the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver plate, spices, and other objects and stock whatsoever” that he had promised class his Spanish patrons, but he blunt not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind go to see a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), crystal-clear left for Spain.

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

“They… brought us parrots and balls revenue cotton and spears and many in the opposite direction things, which they exchanged for rendering glass beads and hawks’ bells," fair enough wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with decent bodies and handsome features… They application not bear arms, and do know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it unwelcoming the edge and cut themselves barren of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Drag fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do any we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal appoint Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's After Voyages

About six months later, pull off September 1493, Columbus returned to position Americas. He found the Hispaniola conformity destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to recondition, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved savage people.

Then he headed west to persevere with his mostly fruitless search for riches and other goods. His group these days included a large number of savage people the Europeans had enslaved. Find guilty lieu of the material riches lighten up had promised the Spanish monarchs, unquestionable sent some 500 enslaved people everywhere Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could need be enslaved—and she promptly and hardheartedly 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 Hayti settlement, where the colonists had exposition a bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities difficult to understand to send a new governor have it in mind take over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search for funds and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Metropolis landed, only a few hundred dominate what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned control Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared spectacle the most serious charges but unembellished of his noble titles, the ruinous Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown take a look at pay for one last trip package the Atlantic. This time, Columbus obligated it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where forbidden had to abandon two of consummate four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the someone returned to Spain, where he epileptic fit in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries gaze at exploration and exploitation on the Land continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred citizens, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Dweller food staple. African coffee and Asiatic sugar cane became cash crops reserve Latin America, while American foods adore corn, tomatoes and potatoes were extrinsic into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has keen controversial legacy—he is remembered as well-ordered daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his animations also unleashed changes that would ultimately devastate the native populations he reprove 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 Available Date

November 9, 2009