Christopher Columbus - Biography, Achievements and Quotes

Christopher Columbus (31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an explorer, navigator, and colonizer, born in the Republic of Genoa, in what is today northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents. Those voyages, and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola, initiated the Spanish colonization of the New World.

In the context of emerging western imperialism and economic competition between European kingdoms seeking wealth through the establishment of trade routes and colonies, Columbus's speculative proposal, to reach the East Indies by sailing westward, eventually received the support of the Spanish crown, which saw in it a promise, however remote, of gaining the upper hand over rival powers in the contest for the lucrative spice trade with Asia. During his first voyage in 1492, instead of reaching Japan as he had intended, Columbus landed in the Bahamas archipelago, at a locale he named San Salvador. Over the course of three more voyages, Columbus visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America, claiming them for the Spanish Empire.

Though Columbus was not the first European explorer to reach the Americas (having been preceded by the Norse expedition led by Leif Ericson in the 11th century), Columbus's voyages led to the first lasting European contact with the Americas, inaugurating a period of European exploration, conquest, and colonization that lasted for several centuries. They had, therefore, an enormous impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light of the spreading of the Christian religion.

Never admitting that he had reached a continent previously unknown to Europeans, rather than the East Indies he had set out for, Columbus called the inhabitants of the lands he visited indios (Spanish for "Indians"). Columbus's strained relationship with the Spanish crown and its appointed colonial administrators in America led to his arrest and dismissal as governor of the settlements on the island of Hispaniola in 1500, and later to protracted litigation over the benefits which Columbus and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the crown.

Achievements & Facts about Christopher Columbus

• Christopher Columbus is an Anglicization of his real name, given to him in Genoa where he was born: Cristoforo Colombo. Other languages have changed his name, too: he is Cristóbal Colón in Spanish and Kristoffer Kolumbus in Swedish, for example. 
• Even his Genoese name is not certain, as historical documents about his origin are scarce.
• Columbus became convinced of the possibility of reaching Asia by traveling west, but getting the funding to go was hard sell in Europe. He tried to get support from many sources, including the King of Portugal, but most European rulers thought he was a crackpot and didn’t pay much attention to him. 
• He hung around the Spanish court for years, hoping to convince Ferdinand and Isabella to finance his journey. In fact, he had just given up and was headed to France in 1492 when he got the news that his voyage had finally been approved.
• On his famous 1492 voyage, Columbus had promised a reward of gold to whoever saw land first. A sailor named Rodrigo de Triana was the first to see land on October 12, 1492: a small island in the present-day Bahamas Columbus named San Salvador. 
• Poor Rodrigo never got the reward however: Columbus kept it for himself, telling everyone he had seen a hazy sort of light the night before. He had not spoken up because the light was indistinct. Rodrigo may have gotten hosed, but there is a nice statue of him sighting land in a park in Seville.
• On Columbus’ famed 1492 voyage, his flagship the Santa Maria ran aground and sank, causing him to leave 39 men behind at a settlement named La Navidad. He was supposed to return to Spain loaded with spices and other valuable goods and knowledge of an important new trade route. Instead, he returned empty-handed and without the best of the three ships entrusted to him. 
• On his fourth voyage, his ship rotted out from under him and he spent a year with his men marooned on Jamaica.
• He was a great captain, but a terrible governor
• Grateful for the new lands he had found for them, the King and Queen of Spain made Columbus governor in the newly-established settlement of Santo Domingo. Columbus, who was a fine explorer, turned out to be a lousy governor. 
• He and his brothers ruled the settlement like kings, taking most of the profits for themselves and antagonizing the other settlers. It got so bad that the Spanish crown sent a new governor and Columbus was arrested and sent back to Spain in chains.
• Christopher Columbus first went to King John of Portugal with his idea to find a westward sea passage to Asia but after months of waiting, the answer was no thank you.
• Queen Isabella's response to Columbus's idea was that his price was to high and that he wanted too many ships.
• If he in fact reached the Indies, Christopher Columbus was asking for a title, a coat or arms and one tenth of all profits for Spain.
• It took Queen Isabella six years to agree. Christopher Columbus, having given up, was four miles out of town when the Queen's courier caught up with him and shared the news.
• It wasn't easy to get the money or the ships, but it was even harder to find a crew. Many people still believed that the earth was flat and that at some point a ship would hit a waterfall and fall off of the side of the earth.
• After many years and many travels, Columbus became an excellent sea captain. [He had many maps that showed that the earth was round. The maps showed that it was possible to sail west to get to the East.]
• Columbus's maps showed that Japan was across the Atlantic Ocean, 2,700 miles away. Columbus did not know that his maps were wrong. Japan is really 12,200 miles to the west! And North and South America are in the way.
• Columbus asked King Henry of Portugal for ships and sailors to discover the way to China and Japan. King Henry said no.
• The weather was good and the trip was easy. Columbus promised the sailors that they would all become rich. At first the sailors were excited. But day after day passed and they did not see land. The sailors became afraid.
• After four weeks the sailors wanted to go back. They thought they would die if they didn't turn around.
• Columbus said, "If we don't find land in three days, we will go back." He offered a prize to the first man to see land. Two times someone shouted, "Land!" but it was a mistake.
• At last, they saw some birds. They followed the birds. On the thirty-fifth day, two hours after midnight, a sailor on the Pinta shouted "Land!" He could see land by the light of the moon.
• Columbus and his men gave presents to the Arawaks, too. He tried to ask them if this island was part of Japan. "They could only use sign language. Columbus thought that he was in the Indies. He called the people Indians.
• Columbus sailed to other islands. He left forty sailors on the island of Hispaniola. He returned home to Spain with just two ships. He took home many things to show Queen Isabella. He brought parrots, pearls, gold, and six "Indians."
• When the two little ships returned, the people in Spain were very, very excited. As the ships came into the port of Palos, cannons thundered, church bells clanged, and people cheered.
• While Columbus played a major role in rooting Europe into North and Central America, he was not the first European to discover America. Leif Ericson landed on the northern tip of Newfoundland almost 500 years earlier. Columbus discovered and explored the Bahamas and other Central American areas (graphic of his trips here). His discoveries were not only five centuries later compared to Ericson, but nowhere near the United States of America that we know today.
• Against popular belief, Columbus was not the only guy that thought the world was round. Most educated people in Europe understood that the world was not flat. Columbus simply thought the distance to Japan was shorter heading west than east and had no clue there were two continents in the way. It’s as simple as that.
• The New World did have its revenge on Europe. Many scientists believe that syphilis was introduced to Europe when Columbus’s returned home after his first voyage. Once introduced to Europe and spread through traveling armies at war, syphilis caused as many as 5 million European deaths.
• At the time of his death, most believed that Christopher Columbus died from Gout, but today some experts believe he died from  a progressively debilitating form of arthritis, a rare tropical disease.
• After his death, Columbus’s remains were buried in four different locations; Spain, Dominican Republic, Cuba and back to Spain, mostly due to international politics and war.
• There are no known authentic portraits of Columbus. All portraits seen today were done posthumous.
• It is believed that Christopher Columbus was born in 1451 in Genoa, Italy. Coming from a middle class family, he worked with his father at his cheese stand. He was a student of the Prince Henry's School of Navigation, located in Portugal.
• Columbus was a light-eyed person having reddish hair. Ironically, there exists no authentic portrait of Christopher Columbus.
• In 1470, Christopher Columbus was hired on a Genoese ship to help Rene I, the Duke of Anjou, in his mission to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. In 1473, Columbus served as a business agent for the Centurione, Spinola and Di Negro families in Genoa.
• In 1480, Columbus, with the help of his brothers, came up with a plan to travel to the Indies, which covered the south and east Asia, by crossing the Atlantic that was then known as the Ocean Sea. Columbus probably underestimated the Earth's diameter and thought he would easily reach Asia by sailing across the Atlantic. Interestingly, Columbus had calculated the Earth's circumference to be only 25,255 kms.
• During his third voyage that began in May 1498, Columbus explored the Gulf of Paria and traveled to the Chacachacare and Margarita Islands.
• Columbus made his fourth voyage in search of the Strait of Malacca. This time, his brother Bartolomeo accompanied him. They had to fight many natural calamities during this voyage. Their ship had to remain stranded in Jamaica for one long year. He returned to Spain with his troops in November 1504.
•  There are at least 19 locations named after Christopher Columbus to include the country of Columbia, British Columbia in Canada and Washington, D.C. (District of Columbia).
• Queen Isabella made Columbus the ruler of the lands he discovered. She was very happy with his discoveries.
• Americans remember Columbus in many ways. Places are named for him, such as the District of Columbia; Columbus, Ohio; and Columbia, South Carolina. Columbia is a nickname for the United States in several songs. Columbia University is named for Columbus. Hundreds of schools are named for him. There is a famous statue of Columbus at Columbus Circle in New York.
• Americans celebrate Columbus Day with parades, parties, and good times. The year 1992 was the five hundredth anniversary of Columbus's discovery of America.
•  Columbus "discovered" (for the Europeans) many of the Caribbean Islands, South America and Central America.
• Columbus was a very religious man who believed that God had singled him out for his voyages of discovery. Many of the names he gave to islands and lands he discovered were religious ones. Later in life, he took to wearing a plain Franciscan habit everywhere he went, looking much more like a monk than a wealthy admiral (which he was). 
• He never believed he had found a new world
• Columbus was looking for a new passage to Asia... and that’s just what he found, or so he said until his dying day. In spite of mounting facts that seemed to indicate that he had discovered lands previously unknown, he continued to believe that Japan, China and the court of the Great Khan were very close to the lands he had discovered. 
• He even proposed a ridiculous theory: that the Earth was shaped like a pear, and that he had not found Asia because of the part of the pear that bulges out towards the stem. By the end of his life, he was a laughingstock in Europe because of his stubborn refusal to accept the obvious.

Superb Quotes of Christopher Columbus

• "Thanks be to God," says the Admiral, "the air is soft as in April in Seville, and it is a pleasure to be in it, so fragrant it is."
• Your Highnesses have an Other World here, by which our holy faith can be so greatly advanced and from which such great wealth can be drawn.
• Tomorrow morning before we depart, I intend to land and see what can be found in the neighborhood.
• Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.
• For this purpose I determined to keep an account of the voyage, and to write down punctually every thing we performed or saw from day to day, as will hereafter appear.
• Gold is a treasure, and he who possesses it does all he wishes to in this world, and succeeds in helping souls into paradise.
• I am a most noteworthy sinner, but I have cried out to the Lord for grace and mercy, and they have covered me completely. I have found the sweetest consolation since I made it my whole purpose to enjoy His marvellous Presence.
• I am not solicitous to examine particularly everything here, which indeed could not be done in fifty years, because my desire is to make all possible discoveries, and return to your Highnesses, if it please our Lord, in April.
• I found that part of it towards San Salvador extending from north to south five leagues, and the other side which we coasted along, ran from east to west more than ten leagues.
• in divinity judgment manners mountains people religion world
• I should be judged as a captain who went from Spain to the Indies to conquer a people numerous and warlike, whose manners and religion are very different from ours, who live in sierras and mountains, without fixed settlements, and where by divine will I have placed under the sovereignty of the King and Queen our Lords, an Other World, whereby Spain, which was reckoned poor, is become the richest of countries. Columbus is coming from the Indies as a prisoner to Cadiz.