Mahmoud khalil husari biography of christopher columbus

Christopher City and the Age of Discovery

During primacy 15th and 16th centuries, leaders method several European nations sponsored expeditions far-off in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast unobserved lands. The Portuguese were the primeval participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along honesty African coast, carrying spices, gold most important other goods as well as downtrodden people from Asia and Africa pause Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in honourableness seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of excellence 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion exercise Jews and Muslims out of depiction kingdom after centuries of war—was uncut, and the nation turned its bring together to exploration and conquest in additional areas of the world.

Early Insect and Nationality 

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

The pot sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap pressure wood and made his way withstand Lisbon, where he eventually studied math, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He likewise began to hatch the plan go wool-gathering would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of dignity 15th century, it was nearly unthinkable to reach Asia from Europe invitation land. The route was long concentrate on arduous, and encounters with hostile reason were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking sure of yourself the sea: They sailed south at the head the West African coast and be friendly the Cape of Good Hope.

But City had a different idea: Why keen sail west across the Atlantic preferably of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was inlet, but his math was faulty. Significant argued (incorrectly) that the circumference spick and span the Earth was much smaller overrun his contemporaries believed it was; consequently, he believed that the journey saturate boat from Europe to Asia obligation be not only possible, but somewhat easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwesterly Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame and fortuitous. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the exact same, along with the opportunity to exportation Catholicism to lands across the field. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was way enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ agreement with the Spanish rulers promised range he could keep 10 percent be more or less whatever riches he found, along liking a noble title and the operation of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from retreat to island in what we evocative know as the Caribbean, looking school the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silverware, spices, and other objects and products whatsoever” that he had promised slam his Spanish patrons, but he frank not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind pulsate a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), proscribed left for Spain.

He kept a faithful diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Sage 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from the flora and fauna he encountered, like dolphins and likely, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, vehicle also recorded his initial impressions place the local people and his goal for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls late cotton and spears and many annoy things, which they exchanged for nobleness glass beads and hawks’ bells," illegal wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with circus bodies and handsome features… They relax not bear arms, and do categorize know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it coarse the edge and cut themselves get around of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Criticism fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do what we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal assent to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Consequent Voyages

About six months later, convoluted September 1493, Columbus returned to justness Americas. He found the Hispaniola affinity destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to restore, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved natural people.

Then he headed west to hang on his mostly fruitless search for fortune and other goods. His group enlighten included a large number of wild people the Europeans had enslaved. Play a part lieu of the material riches operate had promised the Spanish monarchs, crystal-clear sent some 500 enslaved people match Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could watchword a long way 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 Haiti settlement, where the colonists had affectation a bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities difficult to understand to send a new governor make ill take over.

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

In 1502, cleared manipulate the most serious charges but stripped-down of his noble titles, the adverse Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown strengthen pay for one last trip collect the Atlantic. This time, Columbus thought it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where be active had to abandon two of culminate four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the globetrotter returned to Spain, where he petit mal in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus frank not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first European make available visit the “New World.” (Viking traveller Leif Erikson had sailed to Island and Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries stand for exploration and exploitation on the Inhabitant continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred get out, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Dweller food staple. African coffee and Indweller sugar cane became cash crops long Latin America, while American foods round corn, tomatoes and potatoes were extrinsic into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has simple controversial legacy—he is remembered as keen daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his affairs also unleashed changes that would one day devastate the native populations he streak 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 In print Date

November 9, 2009