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Christopher Columbus

Italian navigator, explorer, and colonist (1451–1506)

30 dated entries naming Christopher Columbus, drawn from 13 separate years between 1479 CE and 1516 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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15th century

  • 1479May 13 – Christopher Columbus, an experienced mariner and successful trader in the thriving Genoese expatriate community in Portugal, marries Felipa Perestrelo Moniz (Italian on her father's side), and receives as dowry her late father's maps and papers, charting the seas and winds around the Madeira Islands, and other Portuguese possessions in the Ocean Sea.source
  • 1492April 17 – The Capitulations of Santa Fe are signed between Christopher Columbus and the Crown of Castile, agreeing on arrangements for his forthcoming voyage.source
  • 1492August 3 – The Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus sails with three ships (Niña, Pinta and Santa María) from Palos de la Frontera, in the service of the Crown of Castile, on his first voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, intending to reach Asia.source
  • 1492January 15 – Christopher Columbus meets Ferdinand and Isabella at the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos in Córdoba, Andalusia, and persuades them to support his Atlantic voyage intended to find a new route to the East Indies.source
  • 1492May 23 – At the shipbuilding town of Palos de la Frontera in Spain, an April 30 decree of Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon is read aloud to the residents, directing that two ships are to be delivered to Christopher Columbus and people chosen by the Pinzon brothers will be required to travel on the voyage westward "by command of Their Highnesses").source
  • 1492October 12 – Believing he has reached the East Indies, Christopher Columbus and his expedition of three ships make landfall in the Caribbean and land on the island of Guanahani, now part of the Bahamas. He names the island "San Salvador". Earlier in the day, sailor Rodrigo de Triana on the Pinta had become the first person to spot land. Because of his belief that he is in the East Indies, Columbus refers to the natives as "indios".source
  • 1492September 6 – Christopher Columbus sails from La Gomera in the Canary Islands, his final port of call before crossing the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.source
  • 1493February 14 – A storm east of the Azores threatens to capsize both of the remaining ships, the Niña and the Pinta, on the expedition of Christopher Columbus as the crew are returning to Europe after being the first to reach the "New World". The two ships are separated and neither crew knows the fate of the other. The crew takes a vow for one of them to make a pilgrimage if they survive the storm. Columbus himself later makes a pilgrimage to the cathedral at Moguer in Andalusia in Spain.source
  • 1493January 15 – Christopher Columbus and his crew begin their voyage back to Europe on their two remaining ships, the caravel La Niña (guided by Columbus) and the Pinta (piloted by Martín Alonso Pinzón), departing from the island of Hispanola and what becomes known as the Bay of Rincón in the Dominican Republic. The decision to return to Spain comes two days after the crew's battle with the indigenous residents, the Ciguayos.source
  • 1493March 1 – Martín Alonso Pinzón returns in the Pinta to the city of Bayona in Spain from Christopher Columbus's voyage of discovery, sending the first notice about the discovery to the Catholic Monarchs. Columbus himself is delayed by a storm in the Azores.source
  • 1493March 15 – Christopher Columbus and Martín Alonso Pinzón return to Palos de la Frontera, the original port in Spain from where they started the first voyage of discovery.source
  • 1493March 4 – Christopher Columbus anchors in Lisbon and completes his February 15 letter on the first voyage, conveying the news of his discoveries.source
  • 1493September 24 – Christopher Columbus leaves Cádiz on his second voyage of exploration.source
  • 1494May 5 – Christopher Columbus first sights Jamaica.source
  • 1495March 24 – The first military combat between the Old World and the New World takes place at the Battle of Vega Real. In his role as the Spanish Governor of Hispaniola, Christopher Columbus and his ally, the Taino Chief (cacique) Guacanagaríx of Marién and begin a war of retaliation against the cacique Caonabo of Maguana, who had led the 1493 massacre of the Spanish colonists at La Navidad.source
  • 1496August 5 – Bartholomew Columbus, brother of Christopher Columbus, formally founds the city of Santo Domingo (first settled in March) on Hispaniola (in the modern-day Dominican Republic), making it the oldest permanent European settlement in the New World.source
  • 1496March 10 – Christopher Columbus leaves Hispaniola for Spain, ending his second visit to the Western Hemisphere. During his time here he has forcibly subjugated the island, enslaved the Taíno, and laid the basis for a system of land grants tied to the Taíno's enslavement.source
  • 1498May 30 – Christopher Columbus sets out on his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere from Sanlúcar, Spain.source

16th century

  • 1501September 3 – On complaints from Christopher Columbus, who had been replaced as Viceroy of the New World and arrested in 1500 by Francisco de Bobadilla, Queen Isabella of Spain orders that Bobadilla be recalled from Santo Domingo. Declining to allow Columbus to resume his brutal rule of the New World, the Queen appoints a friend, Nicolás de Ovando, as the new Viceroy. Although Bobadilla receives news of his firing several weeks later, he declines to step aside. Ovando will assemble a fleet of 30 ships and depart Spain on February 13 for Santo Domingo.source
  • 1502August 14 – Christopher Columbus and his crew land at Puerto Castilla in what is now the mainland of the nation of Honduras, becoming the first Europeans to visit.source
  • 1502March 14 – Christopher Columbus begins preparation for his fourth and final voyage, with a goal of finding a westward passage in the New World to link the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean.source
  • 1502May 9 – Christopher Columbus leaves Cadiz in Spain for his fourth and final trip to the New World, taking with him 147 men on his flagship, Capitana and the companion ships Gallega, Vizcaína, and Santiago de Palos. He explores Central America, and discovers the Isthmus of Panama and the land now occupied by Honduras, and Costa Rica, and possibly the island of St. Lucia as wellsource
  • 1502September 18 – Christopher Columbus lands at Central America at what is now Costa Rica.source
  • 1503June 25 – After his ships are damaged in a storm, Christopher Columbus and his 230 men are forced to beach at the island of Jamaica (at modern-day Saint Ann Parish) and remain stranded there for the next six months.source
  • 1503May 10 – Christopher Columbus discovers the Cayman Islands, which he names Las Tortugas, after the numerous sea turtles there.source
  • 1504February 29 – Christopher Columbus uses his knowledge of a lunar eclipse this night, to convince the indigenous Jamaican people to provide him with supplies (in Europe, the eclipse is in the early morning of March 1).source
  • 1504June 28 – After being marooned in Jamaica for six months, Christopher Columbus and his men are rescued by a Spanish ship.source
  • 1504November 7 – Christopher Columbus returns to Spain from his fourth voyage, during which he and his younger son, Ferdinand, explored the coast of Central America from Belize to Panama.source
  • 1506May 20 – Christopher Columbus, Italian explorer (b. c.1451)source
  • 1516Italian explorer Rafael Perestrello, a cousin of the wife of Christopher Columbus, commands an expedition from Portuguese Malacca to land on the shores of mainland southern China, and trade with Chinese merchants at Guangzhou, during the Ming Dynasty.source

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