Christopher Columbus - 3 Minute Innovative History

legend has it the famous Christopher Columbus was inspired to sail around the world after a butterfly landed on his athlete watching it crawl over the Apple reminded him of ships they sailed out of view whether true or not Columbus became an explorer a politician and economy Columbus was born in 1451 in modern-day in Italy and died in 1506 people of Columbus's time calmly accepted the idea of a route world and a map like the Martellus map pictured here would have been commonly accepted in the 1400s European powers are looking for ways to get to Asia to trade valuable goods and spices at the time of Columbus post reusing the land-based Silk Road or the extremely long journey around Africa Columbus whipped up a few calculations and estimated the distance between Europe and Asia to be 2500 miles for that perspective that's only the distance from New York to Los Angeles he was to say had this been true Columbus would have delivered goods faster than any way it took Columbus a few years and plenty of meetings with different European rulers but he was finally able to convince King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Castile the modern day Spain to invest his voyage if you think about it Lamas was basically the first entrepreneur on August 3rd 1492 Columbus the voyage kicked off in modern day Spain for five weeks Columbus sailed the uncharted waters of the Atlantic until finally reaching the America Columbus's calculations were wrong they never reached Asia but he was able to get to the modern-day Bahamas he also really took four voyages and even his first voyage invoked a number of stops first being the Canary Islands where's ship restocked and then eventually San Salvador the first time he's spotted historians are unsure of the exact island Columbus landed on first but he did travel to most of the islands in the region upon the actual landing Columbus was met by native populations they were peaceful especially after Columbus showed them his weapons advantage he noted in one of his log books that I could conquer the whole globe with 50 men and governed them at that please record suggests that Columbus took personal items like gold earrings from them and also brought back new plants and animals to take to Spain even captured six Indians and brought them back with him following his first voyage to the New World Columbus was appointed governor of the new territories only eight years later Columbus was arrested and reprimanded accused of tyranny against the native populations though Columbus wasn't the first European reached the Americas with Leif Ericson and the Vikings beating him by about 300 years it was his voyages that led to the Columbian Exchange this brought things like turkeys pineapples tobacco peanuts corn chocolate and vanila and tomatoes from the Americas to Europe and Africa and sent oranges sugar grapes livestock bananas and disease like smallpox from Europe and Africa to the Americas