Columbus, Christopher

Columbus, Christopher (1451–1506) Italian explorer credited with the discovery of America. He believed he could establish a route to China and the East Indies by sailing across the Atlantic since, along with many learned contemporaries, he believed the circumference of the Earth to be much smaller than it actually is. After several disappointments, he secured Spanish patronage from Ferdinand and Isabella. He set out with three ships (Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria) in 1492 and made landfall in the Bahamas, the first European to reach the Americas since the Vikings, whose achievement was then unknown. Believing he had reached the East, he called the inhabitants “Indians”. On a second, larger expedition (1493), a permanent colony was established in Hispaniola. He made two more voyages (1498 and 1502), exploring the Caribbean region without reaching the North American mainland. He never surrendered his belief that he had reached Asia. His discoveries laid the basis for the Spanish empire in the Americas.