Isabella and Ferdinand, still greedy for the riches of the East, agreed to a smaller third voyage and instructed Columbus to find a strait to India. Columbus returned to Spain in June 1496 and was greeted less warmly, as the yield from the second voyage had fallen well short of its costs. Sailing on, he explored Puerto Rico, Jamaica and numerous smaller islands in the Caribbean. Returning to Hispaniola, he found the men he left there slaughtered by the natives, and he founded a second colony. Landfall was made in the Lesser Antilles in November. He was given the title “admiral of the ocean sea,” and a second expedition was promptly organized.įitted out with a large fleet of 17 ships, with 1,500 colonists aboard, Columbus set out from Cadiz in September 1493 on his second voyage to the New World. The explorer returned to Spain with gold, spices, and “Indian” captives in March 1493, and was received with the highest honors by the Spanish court. He established a small colony there with 39 of his men. Later that month, Columbus sighted Cuba, which he thought was mainland China, and in December the expedition landed on Hispaniola, which Columbus thought might be Japan. On October 12, the expedition sighted land, probably Watling Island in the Bahamas, and went ashore the same day, claiming it for Spain.

On August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, with three small ships, the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina. However, after the Spanish conquest of the Moorish kingdom of Granada in January 1492, the Spanish monarchs, flush with victory, agreed to support his voyage.

He was rebuffed and went to Spain, where he was also rejected at least twice by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. With only the Atlantic Ocean, he thought, lying between Europe and the riches of the East Indies, Columbus met with King John II of Portugal and tried to persuade him to back his “Enterprise of the Indies,” as he called his plan. However, Columbus, and most others, underestimated the world’s size, calculating that East Asia must lie approximately where North America sits on the globe (they did not yet know that the Pacific Ocean existed). Contrary to popular legend, educated Europeans of Columbus’ day did believe that the world was round, as argued by St. At the time, Europeans knew no direct sea route to southern Asia, and the route via Egypt and the Red Sea was closed to Europeans by the Ottoman Empire, as were many land routes. He became obsessed with the possibility of pioneering a western sea route to Cathay (China), India, and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia. Little is known of his early life, but he worked as a seaman and then a sailing entrepreneur. He explored the West Indies, South America and Central America, but died a disappointed man, feeling he had been mistreated by his patron, King Ferdinand of Spain.Ĭolumbus was likely born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451. Columbus was the first European to explore the Americas since the Vikings set up colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland in the 10th century.

On May 20, 1506, the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus dies in Valladolid, Spain.

Columbus dis obituaries 2015