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1451
Columbus's Early Life
Columbus, the son of a wool merchant, was born in Genoa, Italy, in around 1451. Still a teenager, he got a job on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1470, when French privateers attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.The ship sank, but the then young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap of wood and made his way to Lisbon, where he studied mathematics, astronomy, cartography and navigation. -
1490
First Voyage
Near the end of the 15th century, it was impossible to reach Asia from Europe by land. The route was long and tiring, and encounters with rancorous 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? -
Aug 3, 1492
The Americas
Columbus and his crew set sail from Spain in 3 ships: the Nina,Pinta and the Santa Maria. October 12, the ships made landfall, not in Asia, as Columbus thought, but on one of the Bahamian islands.For months, Columbus sailed from island to island,known as the Caribbean,looking for the “pearls,precious stones,gold,silver, spices, and other objects” he had promised to his Spanish patrons,but he didn't find much. March 1493,leaving 40 men in a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola,he returned to Spain. -
1493
Other Voyages
Six months later, in September 1493, Columbus returned to the Americas. He found the Hispaniola settlement destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego behind to rebuild, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved natives.He then headed west, with his own complement of native slaves, to continue his mostly fruitless search for gold and other goods. In lieu of the material riches he had promised the Spanish monarchs, he sent some 500 slaves to Queen Isabella. -
1498
voyages
May 1498, Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic for the third time. He visited Trinidad and the South American mainland before returning to the destroyed Hispaniola settlement, where the colonists had staged a bloody mutiny against the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities had to send a new governor to take over. Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned to Spain in chains. -
1502
Final voyage
In 1502, cleared of the most serious charges but stripped of his noble titles, the aging Columbus persuaded the Spanish king 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 2 of his 4 ships in the face of an attack from malicious natives. Empty-handed, the elderly explorer returned to Spain, where he died in 1506. -