Christopher
Columbus
300-400 years ago a great deal of
the world was undiscoveried. But now there seems little more to explore, the
wild north was conquered, the jungle was conquered too. And it seems that all
the pages of the great book called “The Earth” has been filled in, but
exploration still goes on.
In the 15th century people knew only
3 continents: Europe, Asia and Africa. They knew nothing about America. The man
who was thought to be the discoverier of America was born in 1451 in Italy. His
name was Cristopher Columbus.
Knowing that the earth was round he
desided to reach India by sailing to the west. It was very difficult for him to
organize an expedition as nobody wanted to help him. At last the Spanish
government gave him some money. In the 1492 he sailed with 3 small ships in to
the Atlantic ocean. They had been sailing for more than 2 months and at last
they saw land. Columbus was certain that the lands he discoveried were part of
India and he called these islands “The West Indias”. He made 3 voyagers to
America. His last voyage was made in 1502-1504. After that, seriously ill, he
remained in Spain until his death. He died believing that Cuba was part of
Asia. Colum-buse’s voyagers gave Europe first important knowledge of the new
world. Many places have been named in his honour. America however was named
after another explorer Amerigo Vespucci.
Americus Vespucius (or Amerigo
Vespucci, as the name is spelled in Italian) was born in Florence, Italy, in
1454. He was in Spain at the time of Columbus' first and second voyages. In a
letter, written in 1504 and printed in 1505, he claimed to have made four
voyages, on the first of which, in 1497, he explored the South American coast.
This would make him the first European to land on the American continent, for
at that time Columbus had only reached the outlying islands. Most scholars reject
Vespucius' version of this voyage. Vespucius perhaps did accompany a Spanish
expedition that of Alonzo de Ojeda to South America in 1499, and in 1501 and
1503 he probably went with Portuguese expeditions. Probably he never commanded
an expedition himself and, of course, was not the first person to set foot on
the continents to which his name is given. Vespucius died in Seville, Spain, in
1512.
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