Navigator Who First Reached the Americas in 1492
Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) was a Genoa-born navigator who firmly believed that sailing west across the Atlantic could reach Asia, and after years of lobbying at last won the patronage of the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I, sailing west with a fleet in 1492 and landing in the Caribbean, one of the first Europeans in known history to reach the Americas (before him, the Norse Vikings had earlier evidence of reaching North America, but had formed no lasting transatlantic contact). To his death he firmly believed he had reached the fringes of Asia. This voyage objectively opened the large-scale contact between Europe and the Americas that would run for centuries after, profoundly changing the course of world history — but it also brought upon the native peoples of the Americas the grievous calamity of disease, war, and colonial oppression; the complexity of this historical consequence is an unavoidable part of judging the phrase "Columbus discovered the New World."
Columbus’s scheme of sailing west across the Atlantic to reach Asia had been turned down by several courts, until he at last persuaded the Spanish queen Isabella I to stake a wager and fund a fleet — legend says the queen even once considered pawning her own jewels to raise the money (the truth of this detail is variously told by historians). In August 1492 Columbus set sail west with three ships, reaching the Bahamas that October.
Columbus sailed west four times in all, and to his death in 1506 firmly believed he had reached the eastern coast of Asia, never admitting it was a continent wholly unknown to Europeans before. That the name "America" was in the end given for another navigator, Amerigo Vespucci, rather than for Columbus himself, is not unrelated to this misconception.
The traditional phrase "Columbus discovered the New World" has in recent years met with growing reflection — before his arrival the Americas had been long inhabited by tens of millions of native people, and the Norse Vikings had earlier archaeological evidence of reaching North America; the process of European colonization his voyage objectively opened also brought the native peoples of the Americas the grievous calamity of disease, war, and oppression, and these complex consequences are an unavoidable part of judging this history today.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
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