Biography
Christopher Columbus is a medieval navigator, who opened Sargassovo and the Caribbean Sea, Antilles, Bahamas and the American continent for Europeans, the first of the famous travelers, overwhelming the Atlantic Ocean.
According to various testimonies, Christopher Columbus was born in 1451 in Genoa, in the territory of the current Corsica. Six Italian and Spanish cities claim the right to be called His Motherland. The childhood and youth of the navigator is significantly unknown, almost nothing, the origin of the Columbus family.
Some researchers call Columbus Italian, others believe that his parents were baptized by Jews, Marranians. This assumption explains the incredible level of education, which Christopher received, a leaving of the family of ordinary weak and housewives.
According to some historians and biographers, Columbus under 14 years old studied at home, while he had brilliant knowledge in mathematics, knew several languages, including Latin. The boy had three younger brothers and sister, and they were all trained by coming teachers. One of the brothers, Giovanni, died in childhood, the sister of Biankell rose and married, and Bartolomeo and Giacomo accompanied Columbus in his wanders.
Most likely, Columbam, full assistance was provided with counterparts, rich Genoese financiers from Marranov. With their help, the young man from a poor family hit the University of Padua.
As an educated person, Columbus was familiar with the teachings of the ancient Greek philosophers and thinkers depicting the land with a ball, and not flat pancake, as believed in the Middle Ages. However, such thoughts, like Jewish origin during the Inquisition, which raged in Europe, should have hidden thoroughly.
At the University, Columbus began his friends with students and teachers. One of his loved ones was Astronomer Toskanlyli. According to its calculations, it ranked that to cherished India, complete irreparate wealth, was much closer to sail in the west direction, and not in East, rich Africa. Later, Christopher held his own calculations, which, being incorrect, confirmed Toskanlyli hypothesis. So the dream of a Western journey was born, and her Columbus devoted his whole life.
Even before entering the university, a fourteen-year-old teenager Christopher Columbus experienced marine wanderings. The father made a son for one of the shopping shhun for learning the art of navigation, trade skills, and from this point on, the Biography of Columbus-Maritavochor started.
The first navigation of Columbus in the position of UNGI made the Mediterranean Seas where the trade and economic paths between Europe and Asia were crossed. At the same time, European merchants knew about the wealth and gold places of Asia and India, which resold them wonderful silk and spices from these countries.
The young man listened to extraordinary stories from the mouth of the eastern merchants and walked the dream to reach the shores of India in order to find her treasures and get rich.
Expeditions
In the 70s of the 15th century, Columbus married Felipe Monis from the rich Italian-Portuguese family. The father-in-law of Christophore, settled in Lisbon and who went to the sea under the Portuguese flag, was also a navigator. After death, he left maritime maps, diaries and other documents that were inherited to Columbus. According to them, the traveler continued to study geography, while at the same time studying the works of Piccolomini, Pierre de Aili, Marco Polo.
Christopher Columbus took part in the so-called northern expedition, as part of which his path passed through the British Islands and Iceland. Presumably, there is a navigator and heard Scandinavian sagas and stories about the Vikings, Ericsson Ericsson, who reached the coast of "Big Earth", overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
The route, which allowed to get to India west, Columbus was back in 1475. He presented an ambitious plan for the conquest of a new land on the court of the Genoese merchants, but did not meet support.
A few years later, in 1483, Christopher drawn with a similar proposal to the Portuguese king Juan II. The king gathered the Scientific Council, who reviewed the Genoese project and found his calculations are incorrect. Upset, but the nonsense Columbus left Portugal and moved to Castile.
In 1485, the navigator asked the audience from Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella Castilskaya. The spouses accepted him favorably, listened to the treasures of India Columbus, and the same as the Portuguese ruler, convened scientists to the Council. The Commission did not support the navigator, since the possibility of the Western way implied the shag-likeness of the Earth, which contradicted the teachings of the Church. Columbus was barely declared a heretic, but the king with the queen was walked and decided to postpone the final decision until the war was completed with the Moors.
Columbus, which moved not so much thirst for discoveries, how much desire to get rich, diligently hiding the details of the campaign travel, sent messages to English and French monarchum. Karl and Heinrich did not respond to letters, being too busy internal politics, but the Portuguese king sent a invitation to continue the discussion of the expedition to the navigator.
When Christopher declared this in Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella gave consent to the equipment of the ships squadron to search for the Western way to India, although the poor Spanish treasury had no funds for this enterprise. The monarchs promised Columbus the noble title, the title of Admiral and the vice-king of all the lands that he had to open, and he had to be borrowed from Andalusan bankers and merchants.
Four expeditions Columbus
- The first expedition of Christopher Columbus took place in 1492-1493. On the three ships, Karavellah Pinton (the property of Martin Alonso Pinson) and Niña and the four-person sailboat "Santa Maria", the navigator passed through the Canary Islands, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, opening on the way Sargassovo Sea, and reached the Bahamas. On October 12, 1492, Columbus stepped on the Earth of the island of Samam, called San Salvador. This date is considered to be the Day of Opening America.
- The second expedition of Columbus took place in 1493-1496. In this campaign, small Antilles, Dominica, Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica were opened.
- The third expedition refers to the period from 1498 to 1500. Flotilla from the six courts reached the islands of Trinidad and Margarita, putting the beginning of the opening of South America, and ended in Haiti.
- During the fourth expedition, Christopher Columbus sailed at Martinique, visited the Honduran Gulf and examined the coast of Central America along the Caribbean Sea.
Discovery of America
The process of opening a new world stretched for many years. The most amazing thing that Columbus, being a convinced discoverer and an experienced navigator, was believed until the end of his days she believed that he had opened the way to Asia. The Bahamas, open in the first expedition, he considered part of Japan, followed by wonderful China, and behind him - and cherished India.
What did Columbus opened and why did the new continent get the name of another traveler, Amerigo Vespucci? The list of discoveries performed by the Great Traveler and the Seavworker includes San Salvador, Cuba and Haiti, belonging to the Bahamas archipelago, Sargassovo Sea.
In the second expedition, seventeen ships led by the flagship "Maria Galant" went. This type of vessel with displacement in two hundred tons and other ships were taken not only by sailors, but also colonizers, cattle, suppres. All this time, Columbus was convinced that he opened Western India. Then the Antilles, Dominica and Guadeloupe were opened.
The third expedition led the ships of Columbus to the continent, but the navigator was disappointed: India with her gold paints did not find it. From this travel, Columbus returned to the shackles accused of a false denunciation. Before entering the port of the shackles, it was removed from it, but the promised titles and the titles of the navigator lost.
The last journey of Christopher Columbus ended with a crash off the shores of Jamaica and the hard disease of the head of the campaign. He returned to sick, unhappy and broken failures. Amerigo Vespucci was a close companion and a follower of Columbus, who had taken four travels to the new light. Its name is called a whole continent, and the name of Columbus and not reaching India, one country in South America.
Personal life
If you believe the biographers of Christopher Columbus, the first of which was his own son, the navigator was married twice. The first marriage with Felipe Monis was legal. Wife gave birth to Diego's Son. In 1488, Columbus was born the second son Fernando, from communication with a woman named Beatris Enriches de Aran.
The navigator equally cared about both sons, and the younger even took with him the expedition when the boy turned thirteen years. Fernando became the first one who wrote the biography of the famous traveler.
Subsequently, both Sons of Columbus became influential people and took high posts. Diego was the fourth vice-king of New Spain and Admiral India, and his descendants were titled Marquisians of Jamaica and the Duke of Verague.
Fernando Columbus, who became a writer and scientist, enjoyed the favor of the Spanish emperor, lived in a marble palace and had an annual income to 200,000 francs. These titles and wealth got the descendants of Columbus as a sign of recognition by Spanish monarchs his merit in front of the crown.
Death
After the opening of America from the last expedition, Columbus returned to Spain with a mortally sick, aged man. In 1506, the discoverer of the new light passed away in poverty in a small house in Valladolid. The savings of Columbus spent on payments to the debts to the participants of the last expedition.
Soon after the death of Christopher Columbus from America, the first ships began to come, loaded with gold, which was so dreamed of the navigator. Many historians agree that Columbus knew that she opened not Asia and not India, but a new, unknown continent, but did not want to share glory and treasures to whom one step remained.
The appearance of an enterprising primary retardant of America is also known in the photo in history textbooks. A few paintings were shot about Columbus, the latter was the film of the joint production of France, England, Spain and the USA "1492: the conquest of paradise." The monuments of this great man were installed in Barcelona and Granada, and his ashes from Seville was transported to Haiti.