Christopher+Columbus+By+Yash

I was born on the 25th of August 1451, in Genoa/Italy. I am a navigator and an explorer originally from the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. My voyages range across the Atlantic Ocean, which led to the American continents, in the Western Hemisphere. With my four journeys of exploration and several attempts at creating a settlement on the island of Hispaniola, I began the process of Spanish colonization (a group of settlers to a place), which marked the European colonization of the “New World”. I was best known as the explorer who opened the door to the Americas. The changes I have introduced fall in the category of exploration as I was the first one to find out the American continents, and I that have named it the “New World”. I was born to Domenici Colombo, a middle-class wool weaver, who later also owned a cheese stand where I was his helper, working both in Genoa and Savona. My mother, Susanna Fontanarossa, was a middle- class house wife. Bartolommeo, Giovanni Pellegrino and Giacomo were my three brothers. Batolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for many years. On 1478 I met and married Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, the daughter of a respected, though relatively poor, noble family. Filipa’s father Porto Santo was a governor, a Portuguese nobleman of Genoese origin. I had never written in my native language, but people assumed this was the Genoese variety of Ligurian since I was from that place. I do not exactly remember when I started sailing but in one of my writings, I have mentioned going to the sea at the age of 10. I lived near a seaport and as I saw most young men finding work linked to the sea, I too looked forward to a ride on the boats setting out. Soon I understood and learnt what sailing involved and how to handle boats and ships. This was how my sailing career started in 1470. My family moved to Savona, where my dad took over a tavern. In the same year, I was on a Genoese ship hired for service by René of Anjou to support his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples.
 * //__ Christopher Columbus __//**

I sailed from Spain across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492, landing in the “new world” of the Americas and gaining lasting fame. Using ships and money provided by Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille I sailed west in search of a sea passage to India. I sailed with three ships (the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria) and on my first trip I made a landfall somewhere in the Bahamas. I returned to Europe to spread the word, and was named “Admiral of the Ocean Seas” by Ferdinand and Isabella. I completed three more voyages in the following years, always believing that I had reached Asia, and I successfully opened the door for Spain to conquer the Americas.  My first voyage was on the port of Palos (near Huelva) in southern Spain, on August 3, 1492, in command of three ships: the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria. My crew mostly came from surrounding towns such as Lepe and Moguer. I called first at the Canary Islands, the westernmost Spanish property. I was delayed there for four weeks by calm winds and the need for repair and refit. I left the island of Gomera on September 6, 1492, but calms again left me within sight of the western island of Hierro until September 8.I had expected the voyage to take four weeks, but that deadline came and went without sighting land. The crews of my ships became restless and some argued that a return to Spain was in order. On October 10, I struck a deal with my men: if no land was found in the next three days, we would turn back for Spain. At two hours past midnight on October 12, land was sighted by Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodriguez), a sailor aboard the Pinta. I went ashore the next morning at an island I called San Salvador, which the natives called Guanahani. At Guanahani, I met and traded with the Native Americans of the Lucayan tribe. I also kidnapped several of the natives to act as guides before leaving two days later. I stopped at three other islands in the Bahamas over the next two weeks, which I named Santa Maria de la Concepcian, Fernandina, and Isabela. These are most likely the Crooked-Acklins group, Long Island, and Fortune Island, respectively. My final stop in the Bahamas was at the Ragged Islands, which I called the Islas de Arena (Sand Islands). Following the directions of my native guides, I arrived at Bariay Bay, Cuba on October 28. In second voyage, I left Cádiz on 24 September 1493 to find new territories, with 17 ships carrying supplies, and about 1,200 men to colonize the region. The colonists included priests, farmers, and soldiers. This was part of a new policy— not just "colonies of exploitation", but "colonies of settlement" and conversion of the natives to Christianit. The crew members may have included free black Africans who arrived in the New World about a decade before the slave trade began. On 13 October the ships left the Canary Islands as they had on the first voyage, following a more southerly course. On 3 November 1493, I sighted a rugged island that I named Dominica (Latin for Sunday); later that day, I landed at Marie-Galante, which I named Santa Maria la Galante. After sailing past Les Saintes (Los Santos, The Saints), I arrived at Guadeloupe Santa María de Guadalupe de Extremadura, after the image of the Virgin Mary venerated at the Spanish monastery of Villuercas, in Guadalupe (Spain), which I explored between 4 November and 10 November 1493. On 30 May 1498, I left with six ships from Sanlúcar, Spain, for my third trip to the New World. I was accompanied by the father of Bartolomé de Las Casas. I led the fleet to the Portuguese island of Porto Santo, my wife's native land. I then sailed to Madeira and spent some time there with the Portuguese captain João Gonçalves da Camara before sailing to the Canary Islands and Cape Verde. I landed on the south coast of the island of Trinidad on 31 July. From 4 August through 12 August I explored the Gulf of Paria which separates Trinidad from Venezuela. I explored the mainland of South America, including the Orinoco River. I also sailed to the islands of Chacachacare and Margarita Island and sighted and named Tobago (Bella Forma) and Grenada (Concepcion). I made a fourth voyage nominally in search of the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean. Accompanied by my brother Bartolomeo and 13-year-old son Fernando, I left Cádiz, (modern Spain), on 11 May 1502, with the ships Capitana, Gallega, Vizcaína and Santiago de Palos. I sailed to Arzila on the Moroccan coast to rescue Portuguese soldiers whom I had heard were under siege by the Moors. On June 15, we landed at Carbet on the island of Martinique (Martinica). A hurricane was brewing, so I continued on, hoping to find shelter on Hispaniola. I arrived at Santo Domingo on 29 June but was denied port, and the new governor refused to listen to my storm prediction. Instead, while Columbus's ships sheltered at the mouth of the Rio Jaina, the first Spanish treasure fleet sailed into the hurricane. My ships survived with only minor damage, while twenty-nine of the thirty ships in the governor's fleet were lost to the 1 July storm. In addition to the ships, 500 lives (including that of the governor, Francisco de Bobadilla) and an immense cargo of gold were surrendered to the sea. After a brief stop at Jamaica, I sailed to Central America, arriving at Guanaja (Isla de Pinos) in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras on 30 July. Here Bartolomeo found native merchants and a large canoe, which was described as "long as a galley" and was filled with cargo. On 14 August I landed on the continental mainland at Puerto Castilla, near Trujillo, Honduras. I spent two months exploring the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, before arriving in Almirante Bay, Panama on 16 October. For a year I and my men remained stranded on Jamaica. A Spaniard, Diego Mendez, and some natives paddled a canoe to get help from Hispaniola. That island's governor, Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres, detested me and obstructed all efforts to rescue him and his men. In the meantime I, in a desperate effort to induce the natives to continue provisioning me and my hungry men, successfully won the favor of the natives by correctly predicting a lunar eclipse for 29 February 1504, using the Ephemeris of the German astronomer Regiomontanus. Help finally arrived, no thanks to the governor, on 29 June 1504, and I and my men arrived in Sanlúcar, Spain, on 7 November. Comparing myself to the IB learner profile, I find myself a very big risk taker as I have travelled the world on a boat with no fears or worries. For a normal human to travel on a boat with no worries would be impossible. On each of my voyages I kept on getting new ideas and new strategies to solve problem which kept on coming as I went through each voyage. I also approached unfamiliar situations and uncertainty with courage and forethought. I have confidence on myself to try new things and I stand up for the things I believe in, such as when I had originally found the Americas as people thought I didn’t. Also by looking at the IB learner profile I think that I am a very good thinker who thinks carefully and shows a lot of initiative. I make good and right decisions on the right time. Every time there is a problem I am sure to solve it at that moment, and that’s what makes me a thinker. In conclusion, I would like to say that I am the greatest change maker who is the bravest to go to sea in places where no one ever went before, and to sail around the earth. The world would be nothing without me as I have discovered the most important continent. In today’s world America (USA) is ruling the world with its great population and its great intelligence. Lastly I would like to state that I am the most important man on earth to have discovered the Americas and to have such a big part of the world.

__** Works Cited **__ “Christopher Columbus.” gardenofpraise. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2010. . “Christopher Columbus.” Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 1 Nov. 2010. Web. 3 Nov. 2010. . “Christopher Columbus Biography.” Columbus-day . N.P., n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2010. 