People with big Hearth

October 13 - Columbus landed on the coast, hoisted the Castilian banner on it, formally took possession of the island and drew up a notarial deed about this. The island is named San Salvador (see Guanahani for details). Its coordinates are 24° N. sh. and 74°30′ W e. On the island, the Spaniards saw local residents. Perhaps they were Arawaks. Arawaks went completely naked, and ritual patterns were applied to the body. They did not know iron weapons. By sea, they moved on rowing canoes, accommodating forty people. It was here that the natives gave Columbus "dry leaves" - to***co. Seeing pieces of gold from some of them, Columbus tried to find out its origin and, capturing six Arawaks, forced them to show the way further. For two weeks, Columbus gradually moved south, discovering new islands from the Bahamas. Local residents wore clothes made of cotton yarn. In their homes, the Spaniards first saw hammocks. From the inhabitants, the Spaniards learned about the large southern island of Cuba.
October 28, 1492 - Columbus landed at Bariey Bay in northeast Cuba, 76°W. e. After talking with the locals, Columbus decided that he was on one of the peninsulas of East Asia. However, the Spaniards did not find any gold, spices, or large cities. The houses of the inhabitants were built of branches and reeds, they cultivated cotton, potatoes, sweet potatoes, to***co and maize (corn). Believing that he had reached the poorest part of China, Columbus decided to turn east, where he believed richer Japan lay.
November 13, 1492 - Having learned from the natives about the island, abundant in gold, Columbus moved east in search of it.

Columbus declares the open land the property of the Spanish king. Illustration from 1893.
August 3, 1492 - Columbus took the ships out of the harbor of the Spanish city of Palos de la Frontera.
September 6 - After fixing the leak on the Pinta, the voyage continues due west from the island of Gomera (Canary Islands).
September 16 - Green algae began to appear on the way of the expedition. Gradually they became more and more. The ships sailed through this strange body of water for three weeks. This is how the Sargasso Sea was discovered.
October 7 - at the request of the team, who believes that Japan has "slipped", the ships change course to the west-southwest.
October 12 - at two o'clock in the morning, sailor Rodrigo de Triana from the Pinta board discovered land. Even the day before, the sailors noticed the lights.

At the same time, Christopher Columbus considered these new lands to be East Asia - the outskirts of China, Japan or India. In the future, the newly discovered territories for a long time were called by Europeans the West Indies, literally "Western India", since this "India" had to be sailed to the west, in contrast to India proper and Indonesia, which in Europe for a long time were called the East Indies (" East India).

In historical science, it is considered a debatable question of which particular island, called in the local language “Guanahani”, and called “San Salvador” by Columbus himself, was discovered on October 12, 1492: Watling Island or Samana Key Island. However, there is no doubt that it was one of the Bahamas included in the Lucaya archipelago.

On his first expedition, Columbus equipped three ships - the Santa Maria carrack (the flagship, owner and captain of the caracca was the Cantabrian Juan de la Cosa), the Pinta (the owner of the ship and its captain Martin Alonso Pinzon) and the third was a ship that often called "Nina". The maximum length of the vessel is 17.3 meters, width - 5.6 meters, draft - 1.9 meters, displacement - 101.2 tons, crew - 40 people. The captain of the Nina is Vicente Yanes Pinzon, the maestre and owner of the ship is Juan Niño (Spanish Juan Niño), older brother of Pedro Alonso Nino) and the pilot is Sancho Ruiz da Gama. The flotilla team consisted of only 100 people. The foot of a European first set foot on the islands of the Caribbean - Guanahani (Bahamas), Hispaniola (Haiti), Juana (Cuba). This journey began the expansion of Spain into the New World.

Columbus was born in Italy into a poor Genoese family, his father was Domenico Colombo (Italian: Domenico Colombo), and his mother was Susanna Fontanarossa (Italian: Susanna Fontanarossa).
The exact transcription of his name from Spanish is Cristobal Colon, but in East Slavic and some other languages ​​he is known as Christopher Columbus (Christophor is a transliteration of the Greek name Χριστόφορος). According to the old version, in addition to Christopher, there were other children in the family: Giovanni (died in childhood, in 1484), Bartolomeo, Giacomo, Bianchella (married Giacomo Bavarello). Traditionally, six cities in Italy and Spain dispute the honor of being the small homeland of Columbus.

First voyage (August 3, 1492 - March 15, 1493).
Second voyage (September 25, 1493 - June 11, 1496).
Third voyage (May 30, 1498 - November 25, 1500).
Fourth voyage (May 9, 1502 - November 7, 1504).
After his death, the name of Columbus as a great traveler and discoverer was glorified and is sometimes used as a common noun. However, his brutality in conquering new lands and enslaving the Indians made him a controversial figure in America.

Columbus can be called the discoverer of America for Europeans with reservations, because back in the Middle Ages, Europeans represented by the Icelandic Vikings visited North America (see Vinland). But since there was no information about these campaigns outside Scandinavia, it was the Columbus expeditions that first made information about the lands in the west public and laid the foundation for the colonization of America by Europeans.

Columbus was the first of the reliably known travelers to cross the Atlantic Ocean in the subtropical and tropical strip of the Northern Hemisphere and the first European to walk in the Caribbean Sea and the Sargasso Sea [3] [non-authoritative source?]. He discovered South America and Central America and laid the foundation for their exploration, including the continental parts and nearby archipelagos - the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and Puerto Rico), the Lesser Antilles (from Dominica to the Virgin Islands, as well as Trinidad) and the Bahamas .

Christopher Columbus (Italian Cristoforo Colombo, Spanish Cristóbal Colón, Latin Christophorus Columbus; between August 26 and October 31, 1451, the Republic of Genoa - May 20, 1506, Valladolid, Kingdom of Castile and Leon) - Spanish navigator of Italian origin, who in 1492 discovered for Europeans the New World (America).