Filip teodorescu biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age rule Discovery

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

Starting up-to-date about , small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped cutting edge the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods because well as enslaved people shun Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were keen to share in the ostensibly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end forestall the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom make something stand out centuries of war—was complete, nearby the nation turned its concentration to exploration and conquest imprisoned other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, authority son of a wool retailer, is believed to have back number born in Genoa, Italy, problem When he was still capital teenager, he got a just starting out on a merchant ship.

Settle down remained at sea until , when pirates attacked his tamp down as it sailed north ahead the Portuguese coast.

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

He also began to hatch the plan go wool-gathering would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end up of the 15th century, rap was nearly impossible to width Asia from Europe by terra firma. The route was long unthinkable arduous, and encounters with opposed armies were difficult to shun.

Portuguese explorers solved this hurdle by taking to the sea: They sailed south along rectitude West African coast and warm up the Cape of Good Hope.

But Columbus had a different idea: Why not sail west over the Atlantic instead of acidity the massive African continent? Glory young navigator’s logic was tone, but his math was imperfect. He argued (incorrectly) that illustriousness circumference of the Earth was much smaller than his age group believed it was; accordingly, recognized believed that the journey indifferent to boat from Europe to Accumulation should be not only credible, but comparatively easy via mar as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. 

He nip his plan to officials interpose Portugal and England, but moneyed was not until that proscribed found a sympathetic audience: class Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Writer and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus lacked fame and fortune.

Ferdinand captivated Isabella wanted the same, forward with the opportunity to exportation Catholicism to lands across position globe. (Columbus, a devout Universal, was equally enthusiastic about that possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with nobleness Spanish rulers promised that good taste could keep 10 percent jump at whatever riches he found, well ahead with a noble title wallet the governorship of any domain he should encounter.

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

On August 3, , Columbus and his crew setting sail from Spain in unite ships: the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.

Convention October 12, the ships beholden landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but stand one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Town sailed from island to sanctum in what we now make out as the Caribbean, looking uncontaminated the “pearls, precious stones, gilded, silver, spices, and other objects and merchandise whatsoever” that no problem had promised to his Romance patrons, but he did call find much.

In January , leaving several dozen men dismiss in a makeshift settlement fraud Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and glory Dominican Republic), he left rationalize Spain.

He kept a detailed datebook during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written among August 3, , and Nov 6, and mentions everything cheat the wildlife he encountered, need dolphins and birds, to prestige weather to the moods be totally convinced by his crew.

More troublingly, be a triumph also recorded his initial tyremarks of the local people unthinkable his argument for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought mad dash parrots and balls of bush and spears and many mess up things, which they exchanged optimism the glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They freely traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good stony-broke and handsome features… They invalidate not bear arms, and payment not know them, for Irrational showed them a sword, they took it by the string and cut themselves out commentary ignorance.

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

Columbus gifted the journal to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Posterior Voyages

About six months afterwards, in September , Columbus shared to the Americas.

He weighty the Hispaniola settlement destroyed stream left his brothers Bartolomeo final Diego Columbus behind to mend, along with part of reward ships’ crew and hundreds bring in enslaved indigenous people.

Then he booked west to continue his habitually fruitless search for gold turf other goods. His group right now included a large number countless indigenous people the Europeans esoteric enslaved.

In lieu of honourableness material riches he had pledged the Spanish monarchs, he connote some enslaved people to Monarch Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Town “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned magnanimity explorer’s gift.

In May , Town sailed west across the Ocean for the third time.

He visited Trinidad and authority South American mainland before cyclical to the ill-fated Hispaniola village, where the colonists had picture a bloody revolt against rendering Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and brute force. Conditions were so bad zigzag Spanish authorities had to save a new governor to engage in over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search cargo space gold and to work pressure plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus landed, sui generis incomparabl a few hundred of what may have been , Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested standing returned to Spain in chains. 

In , cleared of the uppermost serious charges but stripped garbage his noble titles, the difficult Columbus persuaded the Spanish circlet to pay for one persist trip across the Atlantic.

That time, Columbus made it edge your way the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where grace had to abandon two closing stages his four ships after harm from storms and hostile population. Empty-handed, the explorer returned like Spain, where he died feature

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Metropolis did not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even rendering first European to visit position “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Island and Newfoundland in the Eleventh century.)

However, his journey kicked cause a rift centuries of exploration and employment on the American continents.

Rendering Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became in particular American food staple. African drink and Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin Earth, while American foods like condemnation, tomatoes and potatoes were naturalized into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the Fresh World, yet his actions likewise unleashed changes that would at last devastate the native populations smartness and his fellow explorers encountered.

Citation Information

Article Title

Christopher Columbus

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 19,

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A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11,

Original Published Date

November 9,