Columbus made his first voyage from europe to america 1492

Columbus made his first voyage from europe to america 1492

120 At/on/in (time)

Compare at, on and in:
* They arrived at 5 o’clock.
* They arrived on Friday.
* They arrived in October./They arrived in 1968.

We use:
at for the time of day:
at 5 o’clock, at 11.45, at midnight, at lunchtime, at sunset etc.

on for days and dates:
on Friday/on Fridays, on 12 March 1991, on Christmas Day, on my birthday

in for longer periods (for example, months/years/seasons):
in October, in 1968, in the 18th century, in the past, in (the) winter, in the 1970s, in the Middle Ages, in (the) future

We use at in these expressions:
at night: I don’t like going out at night.
at the weekend/at weekends: Will you be here at the weekend?
at Christmas/at Easter(but on Christmas Day): Do you give each other presents at Christmas?
at the moment/at present: Mr Benn is busy at the moment/at present.
at the same time: Liz and I arrived at the same time.

We say:
in the morning(s), in the afternoon(s), in the evening(s)
* I’ll see you in the morning.
* Do you work in the evenings?

but:
on Friday morning(s), on Sunday afternoon(s), on Monday evening(s) etc.
* I’ll be at home on Friday morning.
* Do you usually go out on Saturday evenings?

We do not use at/on/in before last/next/this/every:
* I’ll see you next Friday. (not ‘on next Friday’)
* They got married last March.

In a few minutes/in six months etc. = a time in the future
* The train will be leaving in a few minutes. (= a few minutes from now)
* Jack has gone away. He’ll be back in a week. (= a week from now)
* She’ll be here in a moment. (= a moment from now)

We also use in. to say how long it takes to do something:
* I learnt to drive in four weeks. it took me four weeks to learn)

The First New World Voyage of Christopher Columbus (1492)

European Exploration of the Americas

Spencer Arnold/Getty Images

How was the first voyage of Columbus to the New World undertaken, and what was its legacy? Having convinced the King and Queen of Spain to finance his voyage, Christopher Columbus departed mainland Spain on August 3, 1492. He quickly made port in the Canary Islands for a final restocking and left there on September 6. He was in command of three ships: the Pinta, the Niña, and the Santa María. Although Columbus was in overall command, the Pinta was captained by Martín Alonso Pinzón and the Niña by Vicente Yañez Pinzón.

First Landfall: San Salvador

On October 12, Rodrigo de Triana, a sailor aboard the Pinta, first sighted land. Columbus himself later claimed that he had seen a sort of light or aura before Triana did, allowing him to keep the reward he had promised to give to whoever spotted land first. The land turned out to be a small island in the present-day Bahamas. Columbus named the island San Salvador, although he remarked in his journal that the natives referred to it as Guanahani. There is some debate over which island was Columbus’ first stop; most experts believe it to be San Salvador, Samana Cay, Plana Cays or Grand Turk Island.

Second Landfall: Cuba

Columbus explored five islands in the modern-day Bahamas before he made it to Cuba. He reached Cuba on October 28, making landfall at Bariay, a harbor near the eastern tip of the island. Thinking he had found China, he sent two men to investigate. They were Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, a converted Jew who spoke Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic in addition to Spanish. Columbus had brought him as an interpreter. The two men failed in their mission to find the Emperor of China but did visit a native Taíno village. There they were the first to observe the smoking of tobacco, a habit which they promptly picked up.

Third Landfall: Hispaniola

Leaving Cuba, Columbus made landfall on the Island of Hispaniola on December 5. Indigenous people called it Haití but Columbus referred to it as La Española, a name which was later changed to Hispaniola when Latin texts were written about the discovery. On December 25, the Santa María ran aground and had to be abandoned. Columbus himself took over as captain of the Niña, as the Pinta had become separated from the other two ships. Negotiating with the local chieftain Guacanagari, Columbus arranged to leave 39 of his men behind in a small settlement, named La Navidad.

Return to Spain

On January 6, the Pinta arrived, and the ships were reunited: they set out for Spain on January 16. The ships arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, on March 4, returning to Spain shortly after that.

Historical Importance of Columbus’ First Voyage

In retrospect, it is somewhat surprising that what is today considered one of the most important voyages in history was something of a failure at the time. Columbus had promised to find a new, quicker route to the lucrative Chinese trade markets and he failed miserably. Instead of holds full of Chinese silks and spices, he returned with some trinkets and a few bedraggled Indigenous people from Hispaniola. Some 10 more had perished on the voyage. Also, he had lost the largest of the three ships entrusted to him.

Columbus actually considered the Indigenous people his greatest find. He thought that a new trade of enslaved people could make his discoveries lucrative. Columbus was hugely disappointed a few years later when Queen Isabela, after careful thought, decided not to open the New World to the trading of enslaved people.

Columbus never believed that he had found something new. He maintained, to his dying day, that the lands he discovered were indeed part of the known Far East. In spite of the failure of the first expedition to find spices or gold, a much larger second expedition was approved, perhaps in part due to Columbus’ skills as a salesman.

Sources

Herring, Hubert. A History of Latin America From the Beginnings to the Present. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962

Thomas, Hugh. «Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan.» 1st edition, Random House, June 1, 2004.

Предлоги времени: at / on / in

Сравните at, on и in:

at – для времени дня

on – для дней и дат

on Friday / on Fridays
в пятницу / по пятницам

on 16 May 1999
16 Мая 1999

on Christmas Day
в день Рождества

on my birthday
на мой день рожденья

in – для более долгих периодов времени (например, месяца/года/сезоны)

in October
in (the) winter

in 1988
in the 1990s

in the 18th century
in the Middle Ages

in the past
in (the) future

Во всех этих примерах in переводится как ‘в’, кроме in (the) winter – зимой.

Мы используем at в этих выражениях:

in the morning(s)
in the afternoon(s)
in the evening(s)

on Friday morning(s)
on Sunday afternoon!(s)
on Monday evening!(s) и др.

Перед last/next/this/every предлоги at/on/in не используются:

В разговорном английском мы часто опускаем on перед днями (Sunday/Monday и т.п.). Т.е. вы можете сказать:

In a few minutes / in six months и т.п.

Вы также можете сказать ‘in six months’ time’, ‘in a week’s time’ и т.п. :

Упражнения

1. Закончите предложения. Используйте at, on или in + следующее:

2. Выберите at, on или in.

3. Отметьте галочкой правильный ответ a, b или оба ответа? (п. 1 и 2 уже отмечены)

Christopher Columbus

Contents

The explorer Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain: in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502. He was determined to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia, but he never did. Instead, he stumbled upon the Americas. Though he did not really “discover” the so-called New World—millions of people already lived there—his journeys marked the beginning of centuries of exploration and colonization of North and South America.

WATCH: Columbus: The Lost Voyage on HISTORY Vault

Christopher Columbus and the Age of Discovery

During the 15th and 16th centuries, leaders of several European nations sponsored expeditions abroad in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods as well as enslaved people from Asia and Africa to Europe.

Did you know? Christopher Columbus was not the first person to propose that a person could reach Asia by sailing west from Europe. In fact, scholars argue that the idea is almost as old as the idea that the Earth is round. (That is, it dates back to early Rome.)

Other European nations, particularly Spain, were eager to share in the seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom after centuries of war—was complete, and the nation turned its attention to exploration and conquest in other areas of the world.

Christopher Columbus: Early Life

Christopher Columbus, the son of a wool merchant, is believed to have been born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap of wood and made his way to Lisbon, where he eventually studied mathematics, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He also began to hatch the plan that would change the world forever.

The First Voyage

At the end of the 15th century, it was nearly impossible to reach Asia from Europe by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking to the sea: They sailed south along the West African coast and around the Cape of Good Hope.

But Columbus had a different idea: Why not sail west across the Atlantic instead of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was sound, but his math was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of the Earth was much smaller than his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that the journey by boat from Europe to Asia should be not only possible, but comparatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage.

He presented his plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not until 1492 that he found a sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and fortune. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along with the opportunity to export Catholicism to lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about this possibility.)

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Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could keep 10 percent of whatever riches he found, along with a noble title and the governorship of any lands he should encounter.

Christopher Columbus’ Ships: Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew set sail from Spain in three ships: the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but on one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from island to island in what we now know as the Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and merchandise whatsoever” that he had promised to his Spanish patrons, but he did not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind in a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He kept a detailed diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from the wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, it also recorded his initial impressions of the local people and his argument for why they should be enslaved.

“They … brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells,» he wrote. «They willingly traded everything they owned … They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features …They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron …They would make fine servants … With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus’s Later Voyages

About six months later, in September 1493, Columbus returned to the Americas. He found the Hispaniola settlement destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved indigenous people.

Then he headed west to continue his mostly fruitless search for gold and other goods. His group now included a large number of indigenous people the Europeans had enslaved. In lieu of the material riches he had promised the Spanish monarchs, he sent some 500 enslaved people to Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic for the third time. He visited Trinidad and the South American mainland before returning to the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, where the colonists had staged a bloody revolt against the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities had to send a new governor to take over. Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search for gold and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus landed, only a few hundred of what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned to Spain in chains.

In 1502, cleared of the most serious charges but stripped of his noble titles, the aging Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown to pay for one last trip across the Atlantic. This time, Columbus made it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon two of his four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the explorer returned to Spain, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland and Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation on the American continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an American food staple. African coffee and Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin America, while American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets.

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is remembered as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations he and his fellow explorers encountered.

Christopher Columbus

He’s famous for ‘discovering’ the New World but did Columbus actually set foot in North America?

Explorer Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) is known for his 1492 ‘discovery’ of the New World of the Americas on board his ship Santa Maria.

In actual fact, Columbus did not discover North America. He was the first European to sight the Bahamas archipelago and then the island later named Hispaniola, now split into Haiti and the Dominican Republic. On his subsequent voyages he went farther south, to Central and South America. He never got close to what is now called the United States.

Where was Christopher Columbus born?

Columbus was born in the Italian seaport of Genoa in 1451, to a family of wool weavers. As a young lad he went to sea and became an experienced sailor. He then moved to Lisbon, Portugal, to gain support for a journey he was planning to find new trade routes to the Far East. Ferdinand and Isabella, the King and Queen of Spain, agreed to finance him.

What did Columbus aim to do?

What ships did he use?

In 1492 Columbus set sail from Palos in Spain with three ships. Two, the Nina and the Pinta were caravels – small ships with triangular sails. The third, the Santa Maria, was a nao – a larger square-rigged ship. The ships were small, between 15 and 36 metres long. Between them they carried about 90 men.

What did he ‘discover’?

After sailing across the Atlantic Ocean for 10 weeks, land was sighted by a sailor called Rodrigo Bernajo (although Columbus himself took the credit for this). He landed on a small island in the Bahamas, which he named San Salvador. He claimed the island for the King and Queen of Spain, although it was already populated.

Columbus called all the people he met in the islands ‘Indians’, because he was sure that he had reached the Indies. This initial encounter opened up the ‘New World’ to European colonisation, which would come to have a devastating impact on indigenous populations.

What was the return journey like?

On Christmas Day 1492, the Santa Maria hit a rock and was wrecked. Columbus transferred to the Nina and left behind the 39 crewmembers of the Santa Maria on the island of Hispaniola. He wanted them to start a new settlement. Columbus reached Spain in March 1493, and claimed his reward in riches. He was also given new titles. He was made Admiral of the Ocean Sea and Governor of the Indies.

What other journeys did Columbus make?

Columbus made three more journeys across the Atlantic to the Caribbean. He was sure that he had found Cipangu (Japan), but it was actually Cuba. He visited Trinidad and the South American mainland before returning to the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, where the ‘Indian’ inhabitants had staged a bloody revolt against the Europeans.

Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities had to send a new governor to take over. Columbus was arrested, returned to Spain and stripped of his titles. He did make one last voyage to the Americas, however, this time to Panama – just miles from the Pacific Ocean.

What is Columbus’s legacy?

Columbus died in 1506, still believing that he had found a new route to the East Indies. Today his historic legacy as a daring explorer who ‘discovered’ the New World has been challenged. His voyages launched centuries of European exploration and colonisation of the American continents. His encounters also triggered centuries of exploitation of native American populations.