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Columbus referred to the West Indies as the Indias Occidentales ('West Indies') in his 1502 Book of Privileges, calling them "unknown to all the world". He gathered information later that year from the natives of Central America which seem to further indicate that he realized he had found a new land.
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.
Columbus only obtained confirmation of his title on March 30, 1493, when the Catholic Monarchs, acknowledging the receipt of his letter, address Columbus for the first time as "our Admiral of the Ocean Sea and Vice-Roy and Governor of the islands which have been discovered in the Indies" ("nuestro Almirante del mar Océano e Visorrey y ...
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.
"West Indies" or "West India" was a part of the names of several companies of the 17th and 18th centuries, including the Danish West India Company, the Dutch West India Company, the French West India Company, and the Swedish West India Company. [13] West Indian is the official term used by the U.S. government to refer to people of the West ...
In 1492, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain funded Genoese mariner Christopher Columbus's (Italian: Cristoforo Colombo) plan to sail west to reach the Indies, by crossing the Atlantic. Columbus encountered a continent uncharted by Europeans (though it had been explored and temporarily colonized by the Norse 500 years earlier). [25]
The voyages of Christopher Columbus began in 1492, and he sighted land in the West Indies on 12 October that year. In 1496, excited by the successes in overseas exploration of the Portuguese and the Spanish , King Henry VII of England commissioned John Cabot to lead a voyage to find a route from the Atlantic to the Spice Islands of Asia ...
From the early 15th century to the early 17th century the Age of Discovery had, through Portuguese seafarers, and later, Spanish, Dutch, French and English, opened up southern Africa, the Americas (New World), Asia and Oceania to European eyes: Bartholomew Dias had sailed around the Cape of southern Africa in search of a trade route to India; Christopher Columbus, on four journeys across the ...