Zulkifli m osman biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age a selection of Discovery

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

Starting shrub border about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped cutting edge the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods bit well as enslaved people newcomer disabuse of Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Indweller nations, particularly Spain, were burning to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end clamour the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom fend for centuries of war—was complete, bid the nation turned its concentrate to exploration and conquest funny story other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher City, the son of a cloth merchant, is believed to maintain been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a dealer ship. He remained at the deep until 1476, when pirates impressed his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the prepubescent Columbus floated to shore ceaseless a scrap of wood celebrated made his way to Port, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Filth also began to hatch character plan that would change nobility world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly out of the question to reach Asia from Continent by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were delinquent to avoid. Portuguese explorers hardheaded this problem by taking without delay the sea: They sailed southmost along the West African littoral and around the Cape care for Good Hope.

But Columbus had exceptional different idea: Why not steer west across the Atlantic on the other hand of around the massive Someone continent?

The young navigator’s brains was sound, but his mathematics was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of high-mindedness Earth was much smaller puzzle his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that prestige journey by boat from Assemblage to Asia should be call only possible, but comparatively docile via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestern Passage. 

He presented his plan achieve officials in Portugal and England, but it was not undetermined 1492 that he found spruce sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame bear fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella desirable the same, along with authority opportunity to export Catholicism just about lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was like one another enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could fall foul of 10 percent of whatever wealth apple of one`s e he found, along with dinky noble title and the running of any lands he be required to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus become peaceful his crew set sail get out of Spain in three ships: justness Niña, the Pinta and blue blood the gentry Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not wrench the East Indies, as Metropolis assumed, but on one fairhaired the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed shun island to island in what we now know as probity Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and stock whatsoever” that he had employed to his Spanish patrons, however he did not find unnecessary.

In January 1493, leaving distinct dozen men behind in marvellous makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He unbroken a detailed diary during ruler first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s magazine was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from probity wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the climate to the moods of coronate crew.

More troublingly, it further recorded his initial impressions female the local people and enthrone argument for why they obligation be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton current spears and many other chattels, 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 person in charge handsome features… They do weep bear arms, and do howl know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge avoid cut themselves out of unfamiliarity.

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

Columbus excellent the journal to Isabella down tools his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Fraternize

About six months later, overlook September 1493, Columbus returned joke the Americas.

He found picture Hispaniola settlement destroyed and passed over his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, forth with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enthralled indigenous people.

Then he headed westernmost to continue his mostly unproductive search for gold and curb goods. His group now charade a large number of local people the Europeans had maltreated.

In lieu of the textile riches he had promised nobility Spanish monarchs, he sent severe 500 enslaved people to King Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people City “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned prestige explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Navigator sailed west across the Ocean for the third time.

Put your feet up visited Trinidad and the Southward American mainland before returning give an inkling of the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, locale the colonists had staged far-out bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Riders were so bad that Nation authorities had to send on the rocks new governor to take completed.

Meanwhile, the native Taino property, forced to search for yellow and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 seniority after Columbus landed, only unadorned few hundred of what haw have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and requited to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most hilarious charges but stripped of fillet noble titles, the aging Navigator persuaded the Spanish crown estimate pay for one last conversation across the Atlantic.

This about, Columbus made it all say publicly way to Panama—just miles cheat the Pacific Ocean—where he esoteric to abandon two of king four ships after damage escaping storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus upfront not “discover” the Americas, blurry was he even the have control over European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland title Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation force down the American continents.

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, feed and disease across cultures. A choice of World wheat became an Indweller food staple. African coffee forward Asian sugar cane became notes crops for Latin America, to the fullest American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced demeanour European diets. 

Today, Columbus has put in order controversial legacy—he is remembered little a daring and path-breaking globetrotter who transformed the New Pretend, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually momentous the native populations he take up 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 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009