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Most scholars accepted Ptolemy's correct assessment that the terrestrial landmass (for Europeans of the time, comprising Eurasia and Africa) occupied 180 degrees of the terrestrial sphere, and dismissed Columbus's claim that the Earth was much smaller and that Asia was only a few thousand nautical miles to the west of Europe. [15] The "Columbus ...
This was an important milestone because this allowed future sailors like Vasco da Gama to sail to India and Southeast Asia. 1492: Christopher Columbus sets sail from Spain in search of a western route to Asia, eventually landing in the Americas. Though unsuccessful in reaching Asia his successes propelled eventual European expansion, including ...
Christopher Columbus [b] (/ k ə ˈ l ʌ m b ə s /; [2] between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italian [3] [c] explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa [3] [4] who completed four Spanish-based voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas.
In 1492 the joint rulers conquered the Moorish kingdom of Granada, which had been providing Castile with African goods through tribute, and decided to fund Christopher Columbus's expedition in the hope of bypassing Portugal's monopoly on west African sea routes, to reach "the Indies" (east and south Asia) by travelling west. [105]
On this day in 1492, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus discovered the New World. The Italian explorer first found a Bahamian island, thinking he had reached East Asia.
1498 – On his third voyage to the Americas, Christopher Columbus reaches mainland South America. [6] 1499 – Spanish explorer Alonso de Ojeda explores the South American mainland from about Cayenne (in modern French Guiana) to Cabo de la Vela (in modern Colombia), reaching the mouth of the Orinoco River and entering Lake Maracaibo. [2]
One of the others was Christopher Columbus. The title signalled his intention to combine or harmonize in a unified cosmographic depiction the traditional Ptolemaic geography of Europe, Asia and Africa with the new geographical information provided by Amerigo Vespucci and his fellow discoverers of lands in the western hemisphere. He explained ...
A map may prove that Marco Polo discovered America more than two centuries before Christopher Columbus. A sheepskin map, believed to be a copy of the 13th century Italian explorer's, may indicate ...