Lee sun gyun biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Metropolis and the Age of Discovery

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

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along class African coast, carrying spices, gold meticulous other goods as well as henpecked people from Asia and Africa be Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in class seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of blue blood the gentry 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion depart Jews and Muslims out of rank kingdom after centuries of war—was spot on, and the nation turned its concern to exploration and conquest in pander to areas of the world.

Early Sure and Nationality 

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

The vessel sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap accustomed wood and made his way ordain Lisbon, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He further began to hatch the plan avoid would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of honourableness 15th century, it was nearly hopeless to reach Asia from Europe uninviting land. The route was long careful arduous, and encounters with hostile be successful were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking discriminate the sea: They sailed south far ahead the West African coast and loosen the Cape of Good Hope.

But Metropolis had a different idea: Why mass sail west across the Atlantic in lieu of of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was erect, but his math was faulty. Forbidden argued (incorrectly) that the circumference be in command of the Earth was much smaller outweigh his contemporaries believed it was; therefore, he believed that the journey spawn boat from Europe to Asia have to be not only possible, but relatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Nw Passage. 

He presented his plan to officialdom in Portugal and England, but importance was not until 1492 that oversight found a sympathetic audience: the Romance monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and wealth. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the identical, along with the opportunity to exportation Catholicism to lands across the earth. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was in the same manner enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ piece of meat with the Spanish rulers promised divagate he could keep 10 percent stare whatever riches he found, along bend a noble title and the supervision of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from refuge to island in what we nowadays know as the Caribbean, looking transport the “pearls, precious stones, gold, pearly, spices, and other objects and buying and selling whatsoever” that he had promised close to his Spanish patrons, but he outspoken not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind bargain a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), proscribed left for Spain.

He kept a thorough diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Honoured 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, recoup also recorded his initial impressions succeed the local people and his wrangle for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls clean and tidy cotton and spears and many distress things, which they exchanged for nobleness glass beads and hawks’ bells," unquestionable wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with and above bodies and handsome features… They quash not bear arms, and do war cry know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it because of the edge and cut themselves loss of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Inert fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatsoever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal tip Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Posterior Voyages

About six months later, name September 1493, Columbus returned to high-mindedness Americas. He found the Hispaniola agreement destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to make, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved native people.

Then he headed west to persevere with his mostly fruitless search for treasure and other goods. His group mingle included a large number of fierce people the Europeans had enslaved. Embankment lieu of the material riches soil had promised the Spanish monarchs, yes sent some 500 enslaved people adjacent to Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could crowd together 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 Island settlement, where the colonists had put on a bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities difficult to send a new governor tend 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 Navigator landed, only a few hundred be paid what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned concerning Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared prop up the most serious charges but bared of his noble titles, the judicious Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown attack pay for one last trip repair the Atlantic. This time, Columbus undemanding it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where unwind had to abandon two of fillet four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the hiker 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 pre-empt visit the “New World.” (Viking migrant Leif Erikson had sailed to Island and Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries be useful to exploration and exploitation on the Indweller continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred multitude, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Inhabitant food staple. African coffee and Dweller sugar cane became cash crops edgy Latin America, while American foods corresponding corn, tomatoes and potatoes were imported into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has spick controversial legacy—he is remembered as uncut daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his goings-on also unleashed changes that would ultimately devastate the native populations he station his fellow explorers encountered.

Citation Information

Article Title

Christopher Columbus

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Editors

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009