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Columbus spent some time exploring the interior of the island for gold. Finding some, he established a small fort in the interior. Columbus left Hispaniola on 24 April 1494, and arrived at the island of Cuba (which he had named Juana during his first voyage) on 30 April and Discovery Bay, Jamaica, on 5 May.
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.
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.
In his reports, Columbus exaggerated the quantity of gold in the East Indies, which he called the "New World". These claims, along with the slaves he brought back, convinced the monarchy to fund a second voyage. Word of Columbus's exploits spread quickly, sparking the Western European exploration, conquest, and colonization of the Americas.
While it is true that Columbus visited Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands in 1493, Ponce de Leon was the first known European to reach the present-day United States mainland. [ 4 ] On September 25, 1513, Castilian conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa was the first European to see the Pacific Ocean once he crossed the Isthmus of Panama .
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 ...
Illustrative woodcut from the Latin edition of Columbus's letter printed in Basel in 1494. [1]A letter written by Christopher Columbus on February 15, 1493, is the first known document announcing the completion of his first voyage across the Atlantic, which set out in 1492 and reached the Americas.
Having set human history on the global common course, the legacy of the Age still shapes the world today. European oceanic exploration started with the maritime expeditions of Portugal to the Canary Islands in 1336, [2] [3] and later with the Portuguese discoveries of the Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira and Azores, the coast of West Africa in ...