Cristoforo Colombo, a Genoese sailor in his forties, persuaded the Catholic monarchs of newly-united Spain to fund a westward Atlantic crossing he believed would reach Japan in a few weeks. (His estimate of Earth's circumference was about 25% too small; everyone competent disagreed.) On October 12, 1492, after a five-week crossing, his three ships made landfall in the Bahamas. He returned three more times over the next twelve years, exploring most of the Caribbean and a stretch of the Central American coast — and never accepted that what he had found was an entirely new continent. The four voyages opened sustained European contact with the Americas after 12,000 years of separation; the that followed transferred maize, potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco and chocolate eastward, smallpox and measles and cattle westward, killed perhaps 90% of the indigenous American population over 150 years, and reshuffled the diet, demography and economy of every continent. He died in Valladolid in 1506, still convinced he had reached the outskirts of Asia.
All Figures
Genoese Navigator · Admiral of the Ocean Sea
Christopher Columbus
1,451 CE – 1,506 CE
The Genoese navigator who reached the Caribbean in 1492 thinking he was off the coast of Asia — and triggered the largest exchange of biological, cultural, and demographic forces in the recorded history of the planet.
Lifetime
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