Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was an Italian explorer and navigator, born in Genoa. He is known as discoverer of America, on Oct. 12, 1492, after two months of great peril and, in the end, mutiny of his men. He went to sea at the age of 14. Cherished, if he did not conceive, the idea of reaching India by sailing westward, he applied in many quarters for furtherance. After seven years of waiting, was provided with three small vessels and a crew of 120 men. He first touched land at the Bahamas, visited Cuba and Hayti, and returned home with spoils of the land, where he was hailed and honoured as King of the Sea. He made three subsequent visits, and on the third had the satisfaction of landing on the mainland, which Sebastian Cabot and Amerigo Vespucci had reached before him. He became at last the victim of jealousy, and charges were made against him, which so cut him to the heart that he never rallied from the attack, and he died at Valladolid, broken in body and in soul. Carlyle, in a famous passage, salutes him across the centuries: "Brave sea-captain, Norse sea-king, Columbus my hero, royalist sea-king of all".

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Christopher Marlowe, Christopher Morley, Christopher North, Christopher Sly, Christopher Smart