Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Introduction

Christopher Columbus was born in Italy Genoa in august 26, 1451. He was the son of Giovanni Colombo, and his mother's name was Susana Fontanarossa. In his early age, he worked with his father in weaving shop. In the port of Genoa, he learnt the basics of cartography and navigation. In his young age, he took a journey to many countries as a sailor. He traveled to Flanders, Iceland and Portugal where his hip was wrecked in 1476. He married to Portuguese girl named Felipa Moniz de Perestrello in Lisbon. Connection of his wife allowed him to further his studies about navigation. He got an opportunity to present King Joao his project to make a journey to India by sailing towards West. Later his project was not only approved, but he was given the title of captain. The title of captain granted him credibility and great prestige when later he presented the project to Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain in 1486. Being an important personality of modern history, Columbus transformed the history and knowledge of his time.

In the history literature, Columbus is widely known as the first European who discovered the new world order of the Americas. This proved as a major turning point in the history of mankind. In 1484, when he was in Portugal, his challenge was not about the size and shape of the earth, but he was more interested in the distance required to travel to the Spice Island and to the Indies. His miscalculations came from the reading of the Ptolemy, where each degree was equal to 50 miles and the total circumference of the earth to be 18000. Columbus read many books and annotated few of them. Besides classical literature, The Travels of Marco Polo, Puis II's Historia Rurun Ubique Gestarum, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi and the Bible. All these literature proved the existence of Antipodes and provided possible routes of arriving East by making the journey to the West. The fables and myths about the unknown lands and geographies were well provided in these books which increased the curiosity of Columbus about the new lands.

Discussion and details

From the port of Palos in Frontera he sailed in August 1492 and reached on Guanani Island in the same year in the month of October. All in all, he undertook four voyages that ranged between the Panamanian Isthmus and the Caribbean Sea. On the capitulation of Santa Fe, he was given the title of the Viceroy, Admiral of the sea and governor, but in Hispaniola, his failed experience demonstrated him as a disastrous politician, terrible military officer and a failed entrepreneur. From his Onboard diary collected and compiled by Fary Bartolome de las Casas few abstract details the exploits of his four voyages in a rhetorical way which he prepared to convince the monarchs of the viability of an enterprise.

Though Columbus contributed to human and physical geography, but his contribution is full of various legal, ethical ...