Explorers in the New WorldChristopher ColumbusPedro CabralPortuguese ExplorationVicente Yß±ez Pinz≤nAmerigo VespucciOther European ExplorersThe Conquistadors
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Christopher ColumbusChristopher Columbus was the discoverer of the New World (the Americas). After petitioning the Spanish crown for many years to sponsor his voyages, he was finally given permission and provided with ships in 1492. By that time, it was well known among geographers that the earth was round. While everyone else was busy trying to find a sea-route to Asia by sailing East, Columbus throught that it would be better achieved by sailing West. Using the information available at the time, Columbus calculated the distance that he thought it would take to reach Asia by sailing westwards, and believed that it would be possible to mariners to cross the distance in well-provisioned ships. But, despite Columbus' theory being good, his calculations were completely wrong (a fact pointed out to him by the Portuguese) – Asia was more than twice as far as he had calculated. It is highly unlikely that Columbus would ever have been able to cover such a distance in the ships that he had been provided with. Luckily, Columbus did manage to find land more or less where he expected it – but it was America, not Asia. This discovery opened up the New World for Spain. Originally one of Europe's most backward countries, access to the rich resources of the Americas quickly made Spain very rich and powerful. The story of Columbus was greatly romanticised during the 19th century, but modern research has stripped away much of the glamour surrounding Columbus' accomplishments. He is now generally seen as being greedy, potentially dishonest, and a poor leader of men. As part of his reward for discovering the Americas, he demanded high titles, and a percentage of all the riches extracted from the territory. On his original voyage, it is reported that his men almost mutinied against him – and when his mismanagement of a Spanish colony on the island of Hispaniola got too much, he was stripped of his position and returned back to Spain in chains. Some of the worst stories about him say that he once offered a reward to the first sailor who saw land on his first voyage in 1492, then tried to cheat the sailor out of his money by claiming in his journal that he had been the first to see land. Some historians have even suggested that Columbus cheated on his discovery of America, claiming that Columbus may really have learned about the existence of America from shipwrecked Portuguese sailors when he was living on the island of Porto Santo (a Portuguese island in the mid-Atlantic). Indeed, it is possible that a Portuguese ship returning from Africa may have been caught in a tropical cyclone and swept westwards across the Atlantic, then tried to stuggle back home to Europe. On his second voyage to America in 1493, it was reported that Indians on one Caribbean island were cooking in European dishes, and had the mast of a wrecked ship. Ironically, Columbus was not the first European to discover America. The first recorded discovery of America was by the Viking, Leif Erikson prior to 1000AD. A small settlements was built in new territory (Newfoundland, on the eastern coast of Canada) which the Vikings named Vinland. Unfortunately, no-one knows what happened to the settlement – some stories say that it was abandoned, whereas other think that the Viking traders may have been killed or absorbed by local tribes of American Indians. The remains of a Viking settlement were discovered in Newfoundland in 1963.
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