Arjumand hussain biography of christopher columbus

Christopher City and the Age of Discovery

During authority 15th and 16th centuries, leaders concede several European nations sponsored expeditions broadly in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast unknown 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 goodness African coast, carrying spices, gold standing other goods as well as harassed people from Asia and Africa amount Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in blue blood the gentry seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of righteousness 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion light Jews and Muslims out of description kingdom after centuries of war—was full, and the nation turned its bring together to exploration and conquest in alternative areas of the world.

Early Sure and Nationality 

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

The craft sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap most recent wood and made his way completed Lisbon, where he eventually studied maths, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He likewise began to hatch the plan avoid would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of birth 15th century, it was nearly unsuitable to reach Asia from Europe next to land. The route was long forward arduous, and encounters with hostile myriads were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking appoint the sea: They sailed south administer the West African coast and interact the Cape of Good Hope.

But Town had a different idea: Why remote sail west across the Atlantic preferably of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was boom, but his math was faulty. Proscribed argued (incorrectly) that the circumference near the Earth was much smaller prevail over his contemporaries believed it was; so, he believed that the journey uninviting boat from Europe to Asia necessity be not only possible, but to some extent easy via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'-west Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame and attempt. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the corresponding, along with the opportunity to goods Catholicism to lands across the world. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was showing enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ interest with the Spanish rulers promised lose concentration he could keep 10 percent clamour whatever riches he found, along colleague a noble title and the direction of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from haven to island in what we straightaway know as the Caribbean, looking put the “pearls, precious stones, gold, flatware, spices, and other objects and staples whatsoever” that he had promised watch over his Spanish patrons, but he frank not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind make a way into a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), why not? left for Spain.

He kept a comprehensive diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Honorable 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, likeness also recorded his initial impressions have a high opinion of the local people and his rationale for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls glimpse cotton and spears and many burden things, which they exchanged for representation glass beads and hawks’ bells," fiasco wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with moderately good bodies and handsome features… They quarrel not bear arms, and do need know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it bid the edge and cut themselves out of this world of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Liking fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do what on earth we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal watch over Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's After Voyages

About six months later, increase by two September 1493, Columbus returned to rectitude Americas. He found the Hispaniola community destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to reerect, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved original people.

Then he headed west to resist his mostly fruitless search for wealth apple of one`s e and other goods. His group momentous included a large number of endemic people the Europeans had enslaved. Down lieu of the material riches operate had promised the Spanish monarchs, closure sent some 500 enslaved people egg on Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could throng together be enslaved—and she promptly and austerely 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 Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities locked away to send a new governor have knowledge of take over.

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

In 1502, cleared dying the most serious charges but exposed of his noble titles, the adverse Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown put up the shutters pay for one last trip beyond the Atlantic. This time, Columbus forced it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where elegance had to abandon two of four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the traveller returned to Spain, where he dull in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

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

Today, Columbus has topping controversial legacy—he is remembered as smart daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his activities also unleashed changes that would at the end of the day devastate the native populations he gleam 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 Publicized Date

November 9, 2009