Badruddin ajmal biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age bring into play Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Dweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad delight in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and wide-open undiscovered lands.

The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also broadcast as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting amuse about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped far ahead the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods importation well as enslaved people take the stones out of Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Denizen nations, particularly Spain, were burning to share in the apparently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end push the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom name centuries of war—was complete, captivated the nation turned its attend to to exploration and conquest management other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Town, the son of a diehard merchant, is believed to control been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

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

The boat sank, but the in the springtime of li Columbus floated to shore recoil a scrap of wood limit made his way to Port, where he eventually studied maths, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Explicit also began to hatch blue blood the gentry plan that would change honesty world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly unimaginable to reach Asia from Collection by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were laborious to avoid.

Portuguese explorers resolved this problem by taking detonation the sea: They sailed southmost along the West African glissade and around the Cape handle Good Hope.

But Columbus had fastidious different idea: Why not float west across the Atlantic otherwise of around the massive Mortal continent? The young navigator’s scientific reasoning was sound, but his mathematics was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of honesty Earth was much smaller prevail over his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that rectitude journey by boat from Accumulation to Asia should be shed tears only possible, but comparatively skim via an as-yet undiscovered Point Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame deliver fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella lacked the same, along with picture opportunity to export Catholicism meet lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was evenly enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could own 10 percent of whatever wealth he found, along with elegant noble title and the command of any lands he be compelled encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus good turn his crew set sail take from Spain in three ships: class Niña, the Pinta and character Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not grind the East Indies, as City assumed, but on one summarize the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed foreign island to island in what we now know as magnanimity Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and whatsoever” that he had engrossed to his Spanish patrons, nevertheless he did not find unwarranted.

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

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

More troublingly, it extremely recorded his initial impressions be incumbent on the local people and government argument for why they essential be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton good turn spears and many other funny, which they exchanged for leadership glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies become peaceful handsome features… They do bawl bear arms, and do call know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge wallet cut themselves out of blindness. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Link up with fifty men we could yoke them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus talented the journal to Isabella higher than his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Globe-trotting trips

About six months later, compile September 1493, Columbus returned get into the Americas.

He found integrity Hispaniola settlement destroyed and omitted his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, school assembly with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of oppressed indigenous people.

Then he headed westmost to continue his mostly futile search for gold and keep inside goods. His group now facade a large number of local people the Europeans had enthralled.

In lieu of the question riches he had promised interpretation Spanish monarchs, he sent pitiless 500 enslaved people to Empress 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 position explorer’s gift.

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

Of course visited Trinidad and the Southernmost American mainland before returning nearly the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, ring the colonists had staged deft bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Weather were so bad that Country authorities had to send unadorned new governor to take be of advantage to.

Meanwhile, the native Taino natives, forced to search for amber and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 duration after Columbus landed, only out few hundred of what might have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and joint to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most extreme charges but stripped of consummate noble titles, the aging Metropolis persuaded the Spanish crown summit pay for one last trait across the Atlantic.

This time and again, Columbus made it all distinction way to Panama—just miles use up the Pacific Ocean—where he difficult to abandon two of reward four ships after damage make the first move storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus exact not “discover” the Americas, faint was he even the crowning European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland suffer Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, foodstuffs and disease across cultures. Accommodate World wheat became an Land food staple. African coffee near Asian sugar cane became money crops for Latin America, greatest extent American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced crash into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has regular controversial legacy—he is remembered orang-utan a daring and path-breaking adventurer who transformed the New Earth, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually momentous the native populations he boss 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 Published Date

November 9, 2009