CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
origin mystery
The world-famous navigator Christopher Columbus was born into a poor Genoese family in Italy on October 29, 1451 on the island of Corsica - the then possession of the Republic of Genoa. According to another version, the discoverer was born on May 20, 1506 in the Spanish town of Valladolid. In fairness, it should be noted that today 6 cities of both countries dispute the honor of being the birthplace of Columbus.
In his youth, Christopher studied at the University of Pavia, and in 1470 
marries the daughter of the famous navigator Don Felipe Moniz de Palestrello. Bartolome de Las Casas, a contemporary of Christopher Columbus, described his portrait as follows: “He was tall, above average, his face was long and respectful, his nose was aquiline, his eyes were bluish-gray, his skin was white, with redness, his beard and mustache were reddish in his youth. , but in the works they turned gray.
But let us return once again to the question of the origin of Columbus. One Spanish legend says that the navigator was the illegitimate son of the Spanish prince De Vian, and pretended to be a commoner so as not to discredit his father's honor. According to this or another version, Columbus was born in Mallorca and hid the secret of his origin, because. in his youth, in the person of the captain of a corsair ship, he fought against the king of Aragon, the father of the founder of the Spanish state, Ferdinand.
The Italian Encyclopedia states that the Jewish origin of Christopher Columbus is a well-known fact. This version can be disputed by assuming that the so-called "crypto-Jews" (Jews who outwardly observed Christianity) lived in medieval Mallorca, and this explains the presence of "Jewish motives" in the notes of Columbus. By the way, an analysis of Columbus's notes established that the navigator never used Italian in his letters, and the stylistic character and handwriting indicate that he was a widely educated and cultured person, and not a self-taught commoner who accidentally discovered the New World.
And, finally, confirmation in favor of the "Jewish" version is the data of Spanish and Portuguese historians, who report that Columbus was a baptized Jew and had nothing to do with Italy, and therefore was engaged in cartography and calligraphy - Jewish professions characteristic of that era.
The development of the world and the youth of Columbus
In the second half of the 15th century, large cities were built throughout Western Europe, trade developed, money became a universal medium of exchange, which sharply increased the demand for gold. The latter, the Spaniards believed, could be found in large quantities in India. The development of trade forced many countries to think about new ways of marketing - for example, Portugal was looking for southern sea and western routes. At the same time, in the era of the European Renaissance, theories about the sphericity of the Earth began to appear.
In 1474, the astronomer and geographer Paolo Toscanelli wrote to Columbus about his assumption that India could be reached through the West. Christopher Columbus, who moved to Savona in 1472, already then began to make plans for his sea expeditions, in particular, he was interested in traveling to India. Taking into account the opinion of Toscanelli, Christopher decided to sail to India through the Canary Islands, from which, according to his calculations, about 5 thousand km remained to Japan.
In 1476, Columbus settled in Portugal in order to be closer to information sources about the planned sea routes. For 10 years of his residence in Portugal, the discoverer managed to visit England, Guinea, Ireland and Iceland - also in order to collect more data on lands in the West.
Illuminated by the thirst for new discoveries, Columbus hastened to communicate his decision to sail to India to the government of his native Genoa, but they ignored his initiative. In 1483, Columbus tried to get approval for his project through Juan II, but the Portuguese king also refused the young navigator. Then Columbus, together with his son Diego, moved to Spain, where in the winter of 1485-1486. settled in the monastery of Santa Maria da Rabida in the status of a beggar.
Many historians believe that Columbus was hiding from his pursuers, and in Spain he received, so to speak, political asylum. Father Abbot of the monastery Juan Perez de Marchena not only saved Columbus from starvation, but also, having familiarized himself with the bright ideas of Christopher regarding the transformation of the world, wrote a letter to his friend Fernando de Talavera, the confessor of the Queen of Spain. At that time, the king of Spain was extremely busy - he was preparing for war with Granada in the city of Cordoba. Columbus spent the next year in vain attempts to establish contacts with royal financial advisers, merchants and bankers. Finally, in the winter of 1486, the navigator was introduced to the Archbishop of Toledo and the Grand Cardinal of Spain, Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza. The cardinal facilitated an audience with the Spanish king, after which theologians, lawyers, cosmographers, monks and even courtiers studied the project for about a year, who eventually rejected the ideas of Columbus, considering his requests to be overly arrogant, and his ideas unrealistic.
In 1488, Columbus received a letter from the Portuguese king, in which he urged him to return to the country and solemnly promised to stop all persecution of his person. In the same year, Columbus received another good letter from King Henry VII of England, who approved of Christopher's ideas for a trip to India, but did not promise or offer anything concrete.
All of Western Europe was busy preparing for the coming war, and not a single government dared to sponsor an experimental project. The latest confirmation of this was the comments of the kings of Castile Isabella and Ferdinand: "In view of the enormous costs and efforts required to wage war, the start of a new enterprise is not possible."
In January 1492, a joyful event took place - the capture of the Alhambra fortress. Granada fell and the war ended successfully in victory for Spain. Columbus was waiting for this moment, inspired, he came to the king of Spain and offered to appoint himself viceroy of the new lands, award the title of Chief Admiral of the Sea-Ocean, and all this under the banner of discovery and ownership of new lands. His Majesty opposed such insolence, calling Christopher's demands "excessive and unacceptable", and disrupted the negotiations on an unfriendly note.
In 1492, Columbus made a statement about migration to France - apparently for reasons 
try to negotiate with the French king. And then Queen Isabella of Castile unexpectedly takes a step forward: impressed by the idea of liberating the Holy Sepulcher, she offers to pawn her jewelry to give money to Columbus for his journey. On April 30, 1492, the royal couple appoint Columbus as their nobleman and announce that if his expedition succeeds, Christopher will officially become Admiral of the Sea-Ocean and viceroy of all the lands that he will open. He also has the right to pass on his titles by inheritance. However, royal jewels were not enough for a full-fledged overseas equipment. The queen did not receive taxes from her people, and Columbus himself, who did not have a penny, had to pay 13% of the expenses for the expedition.
Columbus was helped to scrape together the amount to pay off his share by his friend Martin Alonso Pinzon, who gave him his own fully equipped ship, the Pinta, as well as money for a second and third ship. As you know, the funds for the 3rd ship were issued under the guarantee of Martin by local marranos - at the expense of their budgetary payments.
The beginning of discoveries
Over the next 12 years, Christopher Columbus undertook as many as 4 expeditions by decree of the King of Spain. Columbus recorded his impressions and new information about the world obtained from his travels in a logbook, part of which was copied by Bartolome de Las Casas. Thanks to these surviving copies, many details of the expeditions have survived to this day.
So, on the first expedition, traveling with his three ships - Pinta, Santa Maria and Nina, 
and a team of 90 people, Columbus discovered America. New lands, the islands of the Caribbean (Bahamas, Haiti and Cuba), Christopher at first considered East Asia. For a long time, Europeans seriously called them "Western India", because the islands had to sail to the West, as opposed to India and Indonesia proper, which in Europe were called "East India". Despite the confusion, after the first significant journey of Columbus began the expansion of Spain into the New World.
The second flotilla of Christopher consisted of 17 ships and a crew of about 2000 people - sailors, priests, officials, service nobles, courtiers. Several ships housed animals - cattle, donkeys, horses, pigs. Also, people brought with them the seeds of agricultural crops for the settlement of future lands. This time Haiti was completely conquered: having barely landed on the shore, the Europeans began to mercilessly exterminate the local population. During the second expedition, almost the entire coast of Cuba was explored - the Lesser Antilles, the Virgin Islands, the islands of Puerto Rico, Jamaica. At the same time, Columbus continued to believe that he was in Western India.
Little money was found for the third voyage, so Columbus' flotilla consisted of only 
of 6 ships and 300 crew members, which also included Spanish criminals. Believing that gold could be found closer to the equator, on May 30, 1498, Columbus left the mouth of the Guadalquivir River with his flotilla and decided to stay closer to the South. Three ships went from the Canary Islands towards Haiti, and three more Columbus led to the South-West, to the Cape Verde Islands. Two months after the start of the third expedition, Columbus discovered the island of Trinidad and, without stopping there, went around it from the South, finding himself in the Orinoco Delta and the Gulf of Paria. Not having time to complete the exploration of nearby lands, the navigator fell seriously ill and was forced to turn north, to Santo Domingo.
Having sailed to Haiti, Christopher Columbus discovered that the colonists had raised an armed rebellion against Bartolome during his absence. As a result, Columbus had to go for the introduction of a system of enslavement of the Indians for the rebellious colonists, each of whom was given a solid piece of land.
While Columbus dealt with the colonists, the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama opened the sea route to the real India. Returning from India with a cargo of spices, Vasco began to denounce Columbus that he was a deceiver, and the lands he had discovered were not India at all. The Spanish royal treasury did not receive income from its new colony for a long time and in 1499 abolished Columbus' monopoly on the discovery of lands. A year later, the royal couple, suspecting Columbus of a conspiracy against the country and an exceptional desire to seize new lands themselves, sent their representative Francisco Bovadilla to Haiti. He took all the power on the island into his own hands, arrested Christopher Columbus along with his brothers, put them in shackles and delivered them to Spain. However, rather quickly, local financiers managed to convince the king to drop the charges against the navigator.
Columbus did not tend to give up even in a very difficult situation. He obtained permission from the king for a new expedition, justifying this with a desire to find a way from the lands he discovered to South Asia. Once, observing a strong sea current off the coast of Cuba, going west through the Caribbean Sea, Columbus realized that such a path exists.
On the fourth expedition, he took with him his 13-year-old son Hernando and his brother Bartolome. During the last expedition, Christopher discovered Central America - the mainland south of Cuba, proving that the Atlantic Ocean separates from the South Sea, as the Indians called it, "an insurmountable barrier." Columbus also became the first to tell about the Indian peoples who inhabited the shores of the South Sea.
Death and eternal memory
Upon returning to Seville, Columbus was very seriously ill. He did not have the strength and former energy to seek the restoration of his rights and privileges from the kings, and he spent all the money on travel comrades. On May 20, 1506, the last words of the great navigator were: “Into your hands, Lord, I entrust my spirit,” and in the same year he was buried in Seville. Interestingly, after the death of Columbus, Emperor Charles V took the initiative to fulfill the dying wish of the navigator and bury him in Western India. The ashes of Columbus in 1540 were first delivered to Haiti in Santo Domingo, then, at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, part of the islands passed from the Spaniards to the French, and the ashes were transported to Cuba in the Cathedral of Havana. After the Spaniards were expelled from Havana in 1889, the ashes of the navigator were again returned to Santo Domingo, and then to Seville.
Like most geniuses, Columbus was recognized only after his death, when in the middle of the 16th century, after the conquest of Mexico, Peru and the states in the north of the Andes, ships with a huge amount of silver and gold went to Europe.
El Salvador's currency was named after Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colón in Spanish) 
- Salvadoran colon. On all issued denominations of all years and all denominations, a portrait of a young or elderly Columbus was placed on the reverse side. Also named in honor of the navigator are: the state in South America Columbia, Mount Cristobal Colon in Colombia, the Federal District of Columbia in the USA, the province of British Columbia in Canada, the Columbia River in the USA and Canada, the Columbia Pictures film studio, the cities in the USA Columbus and Columbia, the shuttle Columbia , the ISS module Columbus, the city in the Panama Canal zone Colon, the province of Colon in Panama, the Department of Colon in Honduras, the Argentine football club from Santa Fe Colon, the main opera house of Argentina, the Colon Theater, the Columbus Theater in the book by Ilf and Petrov "12 chairs".
Around 1474 to Portugal sailor Christopher Columbus arrived. Where he came from, who he was, where he spent his youth - all these questions have been of interest to European and American scientists for many decades. Columbus himself apparently had very good reasons to keep secret everything related to his origin and youth, so information about him is very scarce and contradictory.
It is usually believed that he was a Genoese and spent his youth on voyages, that he visited various ports in the Mediterranean, traveled to Ireland and Iceland.
In 1474, Columbus entered the Portuguese service, visited the newly founded Portuguese colonies in Africa, and lived for several years on the island of Madeira.
At this time, the Portuguese ships were slowly but steadily moving south, surveying the African coast, founding trading posts and preparing the opening of the eastern route to India around Africa.
But Columbus wanted to take a different path.
For a long time he had collected fragmentary information about the lands beyond the Atlantic Ocean, inconsistent stories about voyages to the west, fantastic legends of antiquity and the Middle Ages. He heard that occasionally unknown flowers and other parts of plants, as well as the bodies of unknown people, were brought to the shores of the Azores by the current. Columbus compared all the information with ancient descriptions of Asia.
Particularly struck his imagination was the book of Marco Polo, which told about the gold-roofed palaces of Jipango (Japan), about the splendor and splendor of the court of the great khan, about the birthplace of spices - India.
Columbus had no doubt that the Earth had the shape of a ball, but it seemed to him that this ball was much smaller than it actually was. That is why he thought that Japan was relatively close to the Azores.
Columbus decided to make his way to India by the western route, and in 1484 he outlined his plan to the Portuguese king. But this project seemed fantastic to the king and his advisers. And the possibilities of Portugal were very limited. The war with the Moors in Morocco and the expedition to Africa so exhausted the treasury of Portugal that the Portuguese king categorically refused to equip a new expedition to the unknown west.
At the end of 1484, Columbus fled to Spain to offer his project to King Ferdinand of León and his wife, Queen Isabella of Castile. But here, too, Cristoval Colon (as Columbus was called in Spain) was expected for many years of need, humiliation and disappointment. The royal advisers found the Columbus project unfeasible. Columbus was rejected. Then he proposed his plan to England, and then again to Portugal, but nowhere was he taken seriously.
Only after the Spaniards took Granada, after much trouble, Columbus managed to get three small ships in Spain. With incredible difficulty, he assembled a team, and finally, on August 3, 1492, a small squadron left the Spanish port of Paloe and headed west to look for India.
The sea was calm and deserted, a fair wind was blowing. It went like this for over a month. On September 15, Columbus and his Companions saw a green stripe in the distance. But their joy soon turned to chagrin. It wasn't a long-awaited land, it was the Sargasso Sea, a gigantic seaweed.
On September 18-20, sailors saw flocks of birds flying west. “Finally,” the sailors thought, “the land is near!” But this time, too, the travelers were disappointed. The crew began to worry. In order not to frighten people with the range of the distance traveled, Columbus underestimated the distance traveled in the ship's log.
On October 11, at ten o'clock in the evening, Columbus, eagerly peering into the darkness of the night, saw a light flickering in the distance, and on October 12, 1492, in the morning, still in the moonlight, one of the sailors of the front ship shouted: "Earth!" The sails were removed from the ships. In the morning, travelers saw a small low-lying island overgrown with palm trees. Naked people with copper-red skin ran along the sand along the shore. Columbus put on a scarlet dress on the armor and, with the royal flag in his hands, went down to the shores of the New World. It was Watling Island in the Bahamas. The locals called it Guanahani, and Columbus called it San Salvador. This is how America was discovered.
However, Columbus was sure until the end of his life that he did not discover any "New World", but only found a way to India. And with his light hand, the inhabitants of the New World began to be called Indians.
The inhabitants of the newly discovered island were tall and beautiful. They walked naked, their bodies were colorfully painted. Some had shiny sticks threaded through their noses, which delighted Columbus. After all, it was gold, but nachit, close to the country of golden palaces - Jipango.
In search of the golden Jeepango, Columbus left Guanahani and moved on, discovering island after island. Everywhere the Spaniards were amazed by the lush tropical vegetation, the beauty of the islands scattered in the blue ocean, the friendliness and meekness of the Indians, who gave the Spaniards gold and colorful birds for trinket, molasses and beautiful rags. On October 28, Columbus reached Cuba.
The population of Cuba was more cultured than the inhabitants of the Bahamas. In Cuba, Columbus found statues, large houses, bales of cotton, and for the first time saw cultivated plants - tobacco, corn and potatoes, products of the New World, which later conquered the whole world. All this further strengthened Columbus's confidence that Jipango and India were somewhere close. On December 4, 1492, Columbus discovered the island of Haiti (the Spaniards then called it Hispaniola). On this island, Columbus built Fort La Navidad (Christmas), left forty people of the garrison there, and on January 16, 1493, headed for Europe on two ships. His largest ship, the Santa Maria, was wrecked on December 25th.
On the way back, a terrible storm broke out, and the ships lost sight of each other. Only on February 18, 1493, the exhausted sailors saw the Azores, and on February 25 they reached Lisbon. On March 15, after an eight-month absence, Columbus returned to the port of Palos. Thus ended the first voyage of Columbus.
The traveler was received in Spain with enthusiasm. He was granted a coat of arms with a map of the newly discovered islands and with the motto:
FOR CASTILIA AND LEON
NEW WORLD DISCOVERED COLON
The project of the western sea route from Europe to India was developed by Christopher Columbus in the 1480s.
The Europeans were interested in finding a sea route to Asia, since at the end of the 15th century they still could not penetrate the Asian countries by land - it was blocked by the Ottoman Empire. Merchants from Europe had to buy spices, silk and other oriental goods from Arab merchants. In the 1480s, the Portuguese tried to go around Africa to get across the Indian Ocean to India. Columbus also suggested that Asia can be reached by moving west.
His theory was based on the ancient doctrine of the sphericity of the Earth and the incorrect calculations of scientists of the 15th century.
The monarch created a council of scientists that considered and rejected Columbus' proposal.
Having received no support, in 1485 Columbus went to Spain. There, in early 1486, he was introduced to the royal court and received an audience with the king and queen of Spain, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.
The royal couple became interested in the project of a western route to Asia. To consider it, a special commission was created, which in the summer of 1487 issued an unfavorable conclusion. The Spanish monarchs postponed the decision to organize an expedition until the end of the war with the Emirate of Granada (the last Muslim state on the Iberian Peninsula).
In 1492, after a long siege, Granada fell, and the southern territories of the Iberian Peninsula were annexed to the Spanish kingdom.
After lengthy negotiations, the Spanish monarchs agreed to subsidize Columbus's expedition.
On April 17, 1492, the royal couple entered into an agreement (“capitulation”) with Columbus in Santa Fe, granting him the title of noble, the titles of Admiral of the Sea-Ocean, Viceroy and Governor-General of all the islands and continents that he opens. The position of admiral gave Columbus the right to decide in disputes arising in matters of trade, the position of viceroy made him the personal representative of the monarch, and the position of governor general provided the highest civil and military authority. Columbus was given the right to receive a tenth of everything found in the new lands and an eighth of the profits from trading in foreign goods.
On August 9, she approached the Canary Islands. After repairing the Pinta, which had leaked, on the island of Homer, the ships on September 6, 1492, heading west, began crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
On September 16, 1492, bunches of green algae began to appear on the way of the expedition, which became more and more. The ships sailed through this unusual body of water for three weeks. This is how the Sargasso Sea was discovered.
On October 12, 1492, land was discovered from the Pinta. The Spaniards reached the islands of the Bahamas - the first land they encountered in the Western Hemisphere. This day is considered the official date of the discovery of America.
On October 13, 1492, Columbus landed, hoisted the banner of Castile on it and, having drawn up a notarial deed, formally took possession of the island. The island was named San Salvador. It was inhabited by the Arawaks, a people who were completely destroyed in 20-30 years. The natives gave Columbus "dry leaves" (tobacco).
On October 14-24, 1492, Columbus approached several more Bahamas. Europeans first saw hammocks in the houses of local residents.
Having learned from the natives about the existence of a rich island in the south, Columbus left the Bahamas on October 24 and sailed further southwest. On October 28, the flotilla approached the shores of Cuba, named by Columbus Juana. Communicating with local residents, Columbus decided that he was on one of the peninsulas of East Asia. The Spaniards did not find any gold, spices, or large cities. Columbus, believing he had reached the poorest part of China, decided to turn east, where he believed richer Japan lay. The expedition moved east on November 13, 1492.
On November 21, 1492, the captain of the "Pinta" Pinson took his ship away, deciding to search for the rich islands on his own. The two remaining ships continued east until they reached Cape Maisi on the eastern tip of Cuba.
On December 6, 1492, Columbus discovered the island of Haiti, named Hispaniola because of the similarity of its valleys to the lands of Castile. Further, moving along the northern coast, the Spaniards discovered the island of Tortuga.
Moving along the northern coast of Hispaniola, on December 25, 1492, the expedition approached the Holy Cape (now Cap Haitien), where the Santa Maria landed on reefs. With the help of local residents, guns, supplies and valuable cargo were removed from the ship. From the wreckage of the ship, a fort was built, named Navidad ("Christmas"). Columbus left 39 sailors as the personnel of the fort, and on January 4, 1493 he went to sea on the Nina.
On January 16, 1493, both ships headed northeast, using a fair current - the Gulf Stream.
On February 12, 1493, a storm arose, and on the night of February 14, the ships lost sight of each other.
February 15, 1493 "Nina" reached the ground. But only on February 18 she managed to land on the shore. It was decided to name the discovered island in honor of the lost ship of the Santa Maria expedition (the island of the Azores archipelago).
On February 24, 1493, the Nina left the Azores. On February 26, she again fell into a storm, which washed her on the coast of Portugal on March 4. March 9, 1493 "Nina" anchored in the port of Lisbon. Juan II gave Columbus an audience at which the navigator informed the king about the discovery of a western route to India.
March 13 "Nina" was able to sail for Spain. On March 15, on the 225th day of sailing, she returned to the port of Palos. On the same day, "Pinta" also came there. Columbus brought with him the natives (who were called Indians in Europe), some gold, as well as plants (corn, potatoes, tobacco) and bird feathers that had never been seen before in Europe.
Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile gave Columbus a solemn reception and gave permission for a new expedition.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources
Christopher Columbus was looking for India, but found America. The inhabitants of the New World greeted him friendly, but the brave sailor soon turned into a cruel tyrant.
In the early morning of October 12, 1492, ships under the command of Christopher Columbus anchored off the coast of the Bahamian island of Gwanagani (now San Salvador). And now the Spanish flag flutters over an unknown land. Naked, without weapons, the inhabitants of the island affably and with interest watch the arriving strangers.
If the natives had guessed what grief this man would bring them, they would hardly have met him so carelessly. Only two years will pass, and some of them will be killed, others will become slaves or die from infectious diseases brought by strangers - scarlet fever, typhoid, smallpox.
Columbus discovered the New World by accident. He grew up as the son of an ordinary weaver from the Italian city of Genoa. And he earned his own bread by trading in sugar and drawing geographical maps. But he dreamed of something else: having circled the earth across the Atlantic Ocean, to find a short sea route from Europe to India.
Already in those distant times, scientists understood that this plan was complete nonsense. Columbus greatly underestimated the size of the Earth. Columbus's plan to reach India by western route caused a chuckle from the royal advisers. They called the sailor crazy. But he believed that the journey to India would take several days. Queen Isabella of Spain and her husband became interested in the project and were seduced by the promised fabulous wealth. In addition, they hoped to convert the "wild peoples" of India to Christianity. The royal family granted Columbus the title of "Admiral of the Ocean Seas" and provided him with three small ships.
On August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail for the Atlantic. Many sailors were afraid of traveling, because they believed that the earth was flat, and were afraid to fall off its edge. After 10 weeks of sailing on the endless ocean, the sailor from the mast saw the land. But it was not India, as Columbus thought, but the Bahamas off the coast of the new continent - America.
Having landed on earth, Columbus explored the new world with delight and curiosity. He marveled at the lush vegetation and mild climate. About the natives, mistakenly called "Indians", he writes in the ship's log - "there are no better and more affectionate people in the world." The Europeans were amazed when they saw how the natives smoked tobacco. Soon the whole of Europe lit up. However, neither gold nor any other riches could be obtained. The holds of the Spanish ships were empty. And then Columbus turned into a cruel tyrant. A year later, he again sailed to America on 17 ships, along with 1200 peasants, artisans and armed soldiers, but with the aim of plundering and capturing prisoners.
The first to experience the ruthlessness of the conquerors was the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti). The Spaniards killed children, cruelly dealt with the natives, who could not bring much gold. Then Columbus ordered 550 natives to be loaded in order to make money on the slave trade.
During the third expedition to the shores of America, Columbus was arrested on the denunciation of enemies. From the third trip, Columbus returned in chains. He was soon acquitted and made another trip to the new continent. But his fame has faded. Six years later, Columbus died alone. Even the new continent was not named after Columbus. And in honor of Amerigo Vespucci, who guessed that this was not India at all, but an unknown land.
Columbus' voyages changed world history. But for the American Indians, the time has come for suffering. Columbus was replaced by even more brutal invaders. In America, they sought the wealth of the Aztecs and Incas, sowing death and destruction around. And it all began for the Indians with the joyful meeting of Christopher Columbus on October 12, 1492 ...
STORIES
The famous Italian-Spanish navigator Christopher Columbus was obsessed with a thirst for discovery. Unexplored lands beckoned him, so he decided to discover America. More precisely, he was going to sail to India by the western route across the Atlantic (by that time it was already known that the Earth has the shape of a ball). Columbus was going to sail far to the west, which no one had done before him, so he hoped to discover new lands with his expedition.
The equipment of the expedition required money - ships and a crew were needed. Columbus didn't have that kind of money. Therefore, he had the idea to get money from the King of Portugal, promising him the wealth of overseas territories in return.
At that time, the Portuguese excelled in maritime affairs and sailed the farthest. Columbus began to rotate at the court of King Juan and tried to convince him to fork out for the expedition. At the same time, he painted bright prospects for great discoveries, but the king was careful, because he knew firsthand that many sea expeditions had one disgusting property - to disappear without a trace. Therefore, the king of Portugal did not heed the promises of Columbus about the fabulous wealth of new lands. And you never know the circle of adventurers who need money for unrealizable projects? After all, you won’t be afraid of everyone.
Not having achieved understanding from Portugal, Christopher Columbus decided to offer his services to Spain. I must say that Columbus was a charming man - stately, strong-willed, open - so Queen Isabella was imbued with sympathy for him. She, feeling his strength and frankness, supported his intentions. But King Ferdinand was skeptical. He, like his Portuguese counterpart, was inclined to see Columbus as another dreamer-adventurer. Ferdinand was sorry for the money for the expedition, which, as he believed, would most likely disappear into the Atlantic abyss. In addition, the war with the Moors of Granada required costs, so the king of Spain saved.
Realizing that the Spanish king was afraid of the riskiness of travel, Columbus set out to convince him that the risk of sailing to new lands was small.
To begin with, Columbus stated that the irrefutable proof of the existence of these lands are objects thrown by western storms on the shores of the Azores. For example, carved tree trunks and giant reeds that do not grow in the known world. In addition, he saved up two more strong arguments, which were authoritative opinions.
The first argument of Columbus, his main trump card, was a reference to church authority, relevant in that era of the Inquisition. Columbus referred to the words of the prophet Ezra, whom God told that on Earth the surface area of the continents and islands exceeds the area of the seas and oceans by six times. Hence a simple logical conclusion: you won’t have to sail too long by sea, and most likely the expedition will quickly stumble upon some island or mainland.
The second argument was a reference to the authoritative Italian cosmographer and astronomer Paolo Toscanelli, who at that time was a very popular and respected scientist. Calculating the size of the globe, Toscanelli came to the conclusion that the distance from Spain to India towards the west is about twice as close as towards the east. Columbus himself calculated that the land is even closer - about seven hundred leagues west of Spain, and this land is the eastern tip of India.
Based on these two statements of authoritative persons - the prophet Ezra and Toscanelli, we can conclude that it will not take so long to get to the nearest lands to the west - you can do it in twenty days, or at least in a month. Therefore, the risk is quite acceptable.
In the end, the Spanish king Ferdinand was convinced, and the first expedition of Columbus of three ships took place. Those two authoritative opinions played the most important role in this. Now you and I know that both of them turned out to be false (the area of the water surface exceeds the area of \u200b\u200bland, and India turned out to be further than Toscanelli assumed - there the Pacific Ocean still occupies a whole hemisphere). Therefore, Columbus discovered America, and did not sail to India.
From this story we can draw a useful conclusion: you should not look for immutable truths in the statements of the most prominent authorities.