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Christopher Columbus

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  • Christopher Columbus believed the Canary Islands lay only about 2,400 nautical miles from Japan. The real distance is more than 10,000. He had underestimated the size of the Earth by roughly a third, leaning on Ptolemy's figures and an Arabic mile he mistook for a shorter Roman one. On that flawed arithmetic he sailed west in August 1492 and changed the world. Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa, born sometime between the 25th of August and the 31st of October 1451. He died in Valladolid on the 20th of May 1506, aged 54. Between those dates he made four Spanish transatlantic voyages for the Catholic Monarchs, Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II. How did a self-educated wool weaver's son talk his way into a royal contract? What did he do once he held power over islands and peoples he had never imagined? And why has the man once idealized as a heroic discoverer become one of the most contested figures in Western memory? The answers run from the harbors of Liguria to a lead box inscribed "Discoverer of America."

  • Domenico Colombo was a wool weaver in Genoa and Savona who also owned a cheese stand, where his young son Christopher worked. The boy's mother was Susanna Fontanarossa. He had three brothers, Bartholomew, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo, and a sister named Bianchinetta. By his own account in one of his writings, Columbus went to sea at the age of 14. In 1473 he began an apprenticeship as a business agent for the wealthy Spinola, Centurione, and Di Negro families of Genoa. That work carried him across the known maritime world. In May 1476 he joined an armed convoy Genoa sent to carry valuable cargo to northern Europe. He probably reached Bristol in England and Galway in Ireland. In August 1476 his ship was attacked by French and Portuguese vessels and he was shipwrecked off Lagos, Portugal. The shipwreck made his fortune in an unexpected way. Columbus swam to Portugal and settled in Lisbon, where he found his brother Bartholomew, who ran a cartography workshop there. Through marriage to the Portuguese noblewoman Felipa Perestrello e Moniz, daughter of a captain who had served under Prince Henry the Navigator, he gained access to nautical charts and logs. Largely self-educated, he learned Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian, and read Ptolemy, Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, and the travels of Marco Polo. The historian Edmund Morgan judged that Columbus "was not a scholarly man," yet drew from these books ideas "characteristically simple and strong and sometimes wrong." Those wrong ideas would soon be pitched to kings.

  • With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, the Silk Road was closed to Christian traders, and Europe needed a new path to the spices of the East. Columbus proposed to reach the East Indies by sailing west. The trouble was that nearly every educated person already knew the Earth was spherical; the dispute was over how big it was. In the 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes had correctly computed the Earth's circumference using shadows cast at two locations. Columbus ignored him in favor of smaller estimates. From d'Ailly's Imago Mundi he took Alfraganus's measure of a degree but applied it in the shorter mile of his own day, shrinking the planet. He accepted Ptolemy's claim that Eurasia spanned 180 degrees of longitude, far more than the real figure, leaving a deceptively narrow band of ocean to cross. King John II of Portugal heard the plan around 1484 and sent it to his advisors, who rejected it, correctly, as a quarter of the true distance. A second Portuguese audience in 1488 failed too, undercut when Bartolomeu Dias returned with news of rounding the southern tip of Africa. Columbus turned to Ferdinand and Isabella, who first referred his plan to a committee in 1486 and were told the same thing the Portuguese had concluded. Yet his single great insight was sound: he planned to ride the northeast trade winds west from the Canaries, then curve north to catch the westerlies home, a technique the Portuguese called the volta do mar. Everything depended on a war ending.

  • In January 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, freeing money and attention for new ventures. Even then a council led by Isabella's confessor, Hernando de Talavera, found the plan implausible. Columbus had actually left for France when Ferdinand intervened. The decisive voice was the king's clerk Luis de Santángel, who warned that Columbus would take his ideas to a rival crown and offered to help arrange funding. Isabella sent a royal guard to fetch him back as he rode toward Córdoba. The April 1492 "Capitulations of Santa Fe" gave Columbus extraordinary terms. If he succeeded he would become Admiral of the Ocean Sea, and Viceroy and Governor of all lands he claimed. He would receive one-tenth of all revenues from the new lands in perpetuity, and could buy a one-eighth interest in commercial ventures for a one-eighth share of profits. Those promises later became a weapon against the Crown. After Columbus's death his heirs sued in a long series of court cases known as the pleitos colombinos, the Columbian lawsuits. A judgment in 1511 confirmed his son Diego as viceroy but cut his powers, and disputes initiated by heirs continued until 1790.

  • On the evening of the 3rd of August 1492, three ships left Palos de la Frontera: the carrack Santa María under Columbus, and the smaller caravels Pinta and Niña piloted by the Pinzón brothers. After restocking in the Canaries, the fleet crossed for five weeks. Around two in the morning on the 12th of October, a lookout on the Pinta named Rodrigo de Triana sighted land, an island the natives called Guanahani, which Columbus named San Salvador. He gave the islands' inhabitants the name Los Indios. Off Hispaniola on Christmas Day the Santa María ran aground and was abandoned, its timber used to build the settlement of La Navidad, where he left 39 men. The second voyage was a colonizing force. On the 24th of September 1493, Columbus sailed from Cádiz with 17 ships and nearly 1,500 men, naming islands such as Dominica, Montserrat, Antigua, and the Virgin Islands. He found La Navidad in ruins and its garrison dead. The third voyage, leaving the 30th of May 1498, brought the first recorded European landing on the South American mainland, near the mouth of the Orinoco in what is now Venezuela, where Columbus realized he had found a continent. The fourth, beginning the 9th of May 1502 with 140 men, took him along the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama in search of a strait. Marooned in Jamaica for six months, he won food from the natives by predicting a lunar eclipse for the 29th of February 1504, using Abraham Zacuto's astronomical charts. He reached Spain again on the 7th of November 1504.

  • La Isabela, the settlement Columbus founded in the present-day Dominican Republic, was so poorly placed that disease and famine killed two-thirds of its Spanish settlers by the end of 1494. Under his government the violence grew systematic. He implemented the encomienda, a labor system that handed conquerors the labor of conquered non-Christian people. In February 1495 he rounded up about 1,500 Arawaks, shipping roughly 500 of the strongest to Spain as slaves; about two hundred died on the way. Word of brutality reached the Court. The sovereigns sent Francisco de Bobadilla to investigate, and on arriving in Santo Domingo he seized Columbus's house and property and declared himself governor. Bobadilla reported that Columbus punished a man who stole corn by cutting off his ears and nose before selling him into slavery, and described dismembered bodies of natives paraded through the streets to discourage revolt. In early October 1500, Columbus and his brother Diego were put in chains aboard the caravel La Gorda and sent back to Spain, where they languished in jail for six weeks before King Ferdinand ordered their release. Historians dispute Bobadilla's neutrality, noting his desire to take the post and the anti-Italian sentiment of the time. In 2006, the archivist Isabel Aguirre and Consuelo Varela published the surviving testimonies as La caída de Cristóbal Colón, found uncatalogued in the Archive of Simancas. The records hardened the case against the Admiral.

  • On the 20th of May 1506 in Valladolid, Columbus was first buried at the Chapel of Wonders in the Convent of St. Francis. By his son Diego's will the remains moved to the monastery of La Cartuja in Seville, then around 1536 to a cathedral in colonial Santo Domingo, on the island where Columbus had asked to be buried. From there the trail splits. By some accounts, when France took the whole island of Hispaniola in 1793, the remains went to Havana, and after Cuba became independent following the Spanish-American War in 1898, some were returned to Seville Cathedral and placed on an elaborate catafalque. In June 2003, DNA was taken from the Seville remains and compared with those of Columbus's brother Diego and younger son Fernando. Only short fragments of mitochondrial DNA survived, but they matched the brother, supporting that the two men shared a mother, and researchers concluded the bones were Columbus's. Santo Domingo tells a rival story. In 1877 a priest there found a lead box inscribed "Discoverer of America, First Admiral," holding an arm bone, a leg bone, and a bullet. Those remains now rest at the Columbus Lighthouse, inaugurated in 1992. The authorities there have never allowed DNA testing, so it remains unconfirmed whether they too belong to Columbus.

  • Cotton Mather, the Puritan preacher, described Columbus's voyage in the spring of 1692 as one of three shaping events of the modern age, tying it to the Puritans' own migration. After the American Revolution his name spread as a founding figure for nations seeking a history with fewer ties to Britain. From his name came Columbia, the female personification of the United States in use since the 1730s, the Columbia River, the city of Columbia in South Carolina, and the Republic of Colombia. The 1893 World's Fair in Chicago took the name the World's Columbian Exposition, and the U.S. Postal Service issued its first commemorative stamps, the Columbian Issue. A counter-narrative grew sharper from the 1990s onward, casting Columbus as responsible for the genocide of Indigenous peoples and for environmental destruction. The scholars George Tinker and Mark Freedman call the claim that disease alone caused the deaths "American holocaust denial," while the historian Kris Lane questions whether "genocide" fits atrocities that were not Columbus's stated intent. Others invoke the Black Legend, a long anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic strain in the sources. His historical primacy is itself contested. A Norse settlement around the year 1000 at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland shows that Leif Erikson's people reached the North American mainland nearly 500 years earlier. The man who never clearly renounced his belief that he had reached the Far East gave his name instead to a Columbian exchange of plants, animals, peoples, and diseases that historians still mark as the beginning of the modern era.

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Common questions

Who was Christopher Columbus and where was he born?

Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa, born sometime between the 25th of August and the 31st of October 1451. He completed four Spanish transatlantic voyages for the Catholic Monarchs and opened the way for European exploration and colonization of the Americas.

When did Christopher Columbus first reach the Americas?

Christopher Columbus made landfall in the Americas on the 12th of October 1492, after departing Palos de la Frontera on the evening of the 3rd of August 1492. His landing place was a Bahamas island the native inhabitants called Guanahani, which he named San Salvador.

How many voyages did Christopher Columbus make to the Americas?

Christopher Columbus completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas between 1492 and 1504, each sponsored by the Crown of Castile. They reached the Caribbean, the South American mainland near the Orinoco in 1498, and the coast of Central America in 1502.

Why did Christopher Columbus underestimate the distance to Asia?

Christopher Columbus underestimated the size of the Earth by about a third by following Ptolemy's smaller figures and misreading an Arabic mile as the shorter mile of his own time. He estimated about 2,400 nautical miles from the Canary Islands to Japan, when the actual distance is more than 10,000.

Why was Christopher Columbus arrested in 1500?

Christopher Columbus was arrested in early October 1500 after accusations of brutality and tyranny as colonial governor of Hispaniola. The investigator Francisco de Bobadilla seized his property and sent him to Spain in chains aboard the caravel La Gorda, where he was jailed for six weeks before King Ferdinand ordered his release.

Where is Christopher Columbus buried?

Christopher Columbus died in Valladolid on the 20th of May 1506, and his remains were moved repeatedly, including to Seville and to Santo Domingo. DNA testing in 2003 supported that remains in Seville Cathedral are his, while a lead box found in Santo Domingo in 1877 has never been allowed DNA testing.

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All sources

253 references cited across the entry

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  3. 3Christopher ColumbusValerie I. J. Flint — 16 May 2021
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  11. 11Columbus, Diego (brother)
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  21. 21JournalChristopher Columbus and the FranciscansFrancis Borgia Steck — Cambridge University Press — January 1947
  22. 22La Salle Professor Says Columbus Almost Died Years Before His New World TripMark Abrams — October 13, 2014
  23. 23MagazineThe Lost MarinerElizabeth Kolbert — October 6, 2002
  24. 24BookErikson, Eskimos & Columbus: Medieval European Knowledge of AmericaJames Robert Enterline — Johns Hopkins University Press — 2003
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  38. 38ThesisIberian Asia: the strategies of Spanish and Portuguese empire building, 1540–1700Kevin Joseph Sheehan — 2008
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  45. 45BookBefore Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval EuropeJohn Freely — Abrams Books — 2013
  46. 46JournalThe Evaluation of Columbus' 'India' Project by Portuguese and Spanish Cosmographers in the Light of the Geographical Science of the PeriodW. G. L. Randles — January 1990
  47. 47JournalAl-Farghani and the “Short Degree”Paul Lunde — 1992
  48. 48JournalError calculation of the selected maps used in the Great Voyage of Christopher ColumbusKhairunnahar et al. — Jahangirnagar University — 2017
  49. 49Columbus's Geographical MiscalculationsDouglas McCormick — 9 October 2012
  50. 50BookOvercoming Ptolemy: The Revelation of an Asian World RegionGeoffrey C. Gunn — Rowman & Littlefield — 2018
  51. 51BookThe Christopher Columbus EncyclopediaChristian K. Zacher — Springer — 2016
  52. 52BookThe Christopher Columbus EncyclopediaO. A. W. Dilke — Springer — 2016
  53. 53BookThe European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages A.D. 1492–1616Samuel Eliot Morison — Oxford University Press — 1974
  54. 54BookThe AtlanticPaul Butel — Routledge — 2002
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  57. 57BookRenaissance EuropeDe Lamar Jensen — D.C. Heath and Company — 1992
  58. 58BookThe Tropics of Empire: Why Columbus Sailed South to the IndiesNicolás Wey Gómez — MIT Press — 2008
  59. 59JournalHow Columbus Encountered AmericaV. Frederick Rickey — 1992
  60. 60BookThe Christopher Columbus EncyclopediaAlfredo Pinheiro-Marques — Springer — 2016
  61. 61BookChristopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies: A Brief History with DocumentsGeoffrey Symcox et al. — Springer — 2016
  62. 62Exploring The Alhambra Palace And Fortress In Granada, SpainGeoffrey Morrison — 15 October 2015
  63. 63BookInfidels and Empires in a New World Order: Early Modern Spanish Contributions to International Legal ThoughtDavid M. Lantigua — Cambridge University Press — 2020
  64. 64BookIberia and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History: a Multidisciplinary EncyclopediaCarlos Alberto González Sánchez — ABC-CLIO — 2006
  65. 65JournalCristóbal Colón en presencia de la muerte (1505–1506)Mario Hernández Sánchez-Barba — 2006
  66. 66BookDon Diego Colón, almirante, virrey y gobernador de las IndiasLuis Arranz Márquez — Editorial CSIC – CSIC Press — 1982
  67. 67BookThe Columbian ExchangeJoshua Specht et al. — CRC Press — 2017
  68. 68BookThe New World in Early Modern Italy, 1492–1750Elizabeth Horodowich — Cambridge University Press — 2017
  69. 69The Naming of AmericaJonathan Cohen — Umc.sunysb.edu
  70. 70BookAmerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to AmericaFelipe Fernández-Armesto — Random House — 2007
  71. 71JournalColumbus's Plana landfall: Evidence for the Plana Cays as Columbus's 'San Salvador'Keith A. Pickering — August 1994
  72. 72The Original NiñaThe Columbus Foundation
  73. 73BookParadise Found: Nature in America at the Time of DiscoverySteve Nicholls — University of Chicago Press — 2009
  74. 74Lopez, (1990, p. 14); Columbus & Toscanelli (2010, p. 35)
  75. 75Lopez, (1990, p. 15)
  76. 76BookThe Diario of Christopher Columbus's First Voyage to America, 1492–1493Oliver Dunn et al. — University of Oklahoma Press — 1989
  77. 77BookEncyclopedia of North American IndiansFrederick Hoxie — Houghton Mifflin — 1996
  78. 78JournalMobility and Disdain: Columbus and Cannibals in the Land of CottonWilliam F. Keegan — 2015
  79. 79Zinn (2003) p. 1–22Zinn — 2003
  80. 80Columbus (1991, p. 87). Or "these people are very simple as regards the use of arms ... for with fifty men they can all be subjugated and made to do what is required of them." (Columbus & Toscanelli,
  81. 81BookA Brief History of the CaribbeanD. H. Figueredo — Infobase — 2008
  82. 82BookColumbus's Outpost Among the Taínos: Spain and America at La Isabela, 1493–1498Kathleen A. Deagan — Yale University Press — 2008
  83. 83BookThe Race to the New World: Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, and a Lost History of DiscoveryDouglas Hunter — Macmillan — 2012
  84. 84BookAmerica Magica: When Renaissance Europe Thought It Had Conquered ParadiseJorge Magasich-Airola et al. — Anthem — 2007
  85. 85BookSurviving Spanish Conquest: Indian Fight, Flight, and Cultural Transformation in Hispaniola and Puerto RicoKaren F. Anderson-Córdova — University of Alabama Press — 2017
  86. 86JournalFrom Contact to Criollos: The Archaeology of Spanish Colonization in HispaniolaKathleen Deagan et al. — 1993
  87. 87MagazineThe Lost Fort of ColumbusFrances Maclean — January 2008
  88. 88BookChristopher Columbus's Naming in the 'diarios' of the Four Voyages (1492–1504): A Discourse of NegotiationEvelina Gužauskytė — University of Toronto Press — 2014
  89. 89BookConfronting Columbus: An AnthologyJohn Yewell et al. — McFarland & Co. — 1992
  90. 90BookThe Journal of Christopher ColumbusClements R. Markham — Hakluyt Society — 1893
  91. 91BookThe Diario of Christopher Columbus's First Voyage to America, 1492–1493Oliver Dunn et al. — University of Oklahoma Press — 1989
  92. 92JournalColumbus in the AzoresRebecca Catz — 1990
  93. 93BookSpain, 1469–1714: A Society of ConflictHenry Kamen — Routledge — 2014
  94. 94BookAmerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to AmericaFelipe Fernández-Armesto — Random House — 2007
  95. 95Early Modern Spain: Introduction to the Letters from AmericaBarry Ife — 1992
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  97. 97NewsThis college donation is truly historic. And it's not just the artifacts involvedAna Veciana-Suarez — 22 January 2017
  98. 98BookArchaeology at La Isabela: America's First European TownKathleen A. Deagan et al. — Yale University Press — 2008
  99. 99BookThe Christopher Columbus EncyclopediaSilvio A. Bedini — Springer — 2016
  100. 100BookThe Great Explorers: The European Discovery of AmericaSamuel Eliot Morison — Oxford University Press — 1986
  101. 101The Spanish Conquest of the TainosAntonio de la Cova — Antonio Rafael de la Cova
  102. 102"Teeth Of Columbus's Crew Flesh Out Tale Of New World Discovery". ScienceDaily. 20 March 2009.
  103. 103BookA Pest in the Land: New World Epidemics in a Global PerspectiveSuzanne Austin Alchon — University of New Mexico Press — 2003
  104. 104JournalEncomienda or Slavery? The Spanish Crown's Choice of Labor Organization in Sixteenth-Century Spanish AmericaTimothy J. Yeager — 3 March 2009
  105. 105BookAmerican Holocaust: The Conquest of the New WorldDavid E. Stannard — Oxford University Press — 1993
  106. 106BookColumbus's Outpost Among the Taínos: Spain and America at La Isabela, 1493–1498Kathleen A. Deagan et al. — Yale University Press — 2008
  107. 107An American Secret: The Untold Story Of Native American EnslavementRhaina Cohen et al. — 20 November 2017
  108. 108BookAmerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to AmericaFelipe Fernández-Armesto — Random House — 2007
  109. 109BookBorn to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650Noble David Cook — Cambridge University Press — 1998
  110. 110BookThe Peoples of the Caribbean: An Encyclopedia of Archaeology and Traditional CultureNicholas J. Saunders — ABC-CLIO — 2005
  111. 111BookThe Imaginative Landscape of Christopher ColumbusValerie Irene Jane Flint — Princeton University Press — 2017
  112. 112BookNorth American ExplorationRobert H. Fuson — University of Nebraska Press — 1997
  113. 113BookTerra Cognita: The Mental Discovery of AmericaEviatar Zerubavel — Transaction Publishers — 2003
  114. 114BookConquistadores: A New History of Spanish Discovery and ConquestFernando Cervantes — Penguin — 2021
  115. 115BookThe Caribbean as Columbus Saw itSamuel Eliot Morison et al. — Little, Brown — 1964
  116. 116BookChristopher Columbus: Controversial Explorer of the AmericasChristopher Brink — Cavendish Square — 2019
  117. 117BookThe Classical Tradition and the Americas: European Images of the Americas and the Classical Tradition (2 pts.)Heinz Hofmann — Walter de Gruyter — 1994
  118. 118VideoColumbus ControversyA&E Television Networks
  119. 119BookSelect Letters of Christopher Columbus: With Other Original Documents, Relating to his Four Voyages to the New WorldChristopher Columbus — Cambridge University Press — 2010
  120. 120BookColumbus on himselfFelipe Fernández-Armesto — Hackett Pub. Co — 2010
  121. 121National Association of Scholars – Remembering Columbus: Blinded by Politics by Robert Carle
  122. 122BookChristopher Columbus's Naming in the 'diarios' of the Four Voyages (1492–1504): A Discourse of NegotiationEvelina Gužauskytė — University of Toronto Press — 2014
  123. 123BookThe Life of Christopher ColumbusEdward Everett Hale — Prabhat Prakashan — 2021
  124. 124BookConquistadores: a new history of Spanish discovery and conquestFernando Cervantes — Penguin — 2021
  125. 125JournalCastilian Justice and Columbian Injustice. The end of the Columbian Government in HispaniolaIstvan Szaszdi Leon — 1 January 2012
  126. 126BookLa caída de Cristóbal Colón: el juicio de BobadillaConsuelo Varela et al. — Marcial Pons Historia — 2006
  127. 127BookThe Early Spanish MainCarl Ortwin Sauer — Cambridge University Press — 2008
  128. 128BookBorn to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650Noble David Cook — Cambridge University Press — 1998
  129. 129BookChristopher Columbus's Naming in the 'diarios' of the Four Voyages (1492–1504): A Discourse of NegotiationEvelina Gužauskytė — University of Toronto Press — 2014
  130. 130BookThe Christopher Columbus EncyclopediaSilvio A. Bedini — Springer — 2016
  131. 131BookNueva luz sobre las capitulaciones de Santa Fe de 1492 concertadas entre los Reyes Católicos y Cristóbal Colón: estudio institucional y diplomáticoAntonio Rumeu de Armas — Editorial CSIC – CSIC Press — 1985
  132. 132BookIntegración Política de CentroaméricaEnrique Ortez Colindres — Editorial Universitaria Centroamericana — 1975
  133. 133BookHistoria general de Panamá: Tomo 1. Las sociedades originarias; El orden colonial. Tomo 2. El orden colonialAlfredo Castillero Calvo — Comité Nacional del Centenario de la República — 2004
  134. 134BookThe Christopher Columbus EncyclopediaSilvio A. Bedini — Springer — 2016
  135. 135BookArcheological Notes on Almirante Bay, Bocas Del Toro, PanamaMatthew Williams Stirling et al. — U.S. Government Printing Office — 1964
  136. 136BookThe Ocean Reader: History, Culture, PoliticsDiego Méndez — Duke University Press — 2020
  137. 137JournalDiego Méndez, Secretary of Christopher Columbus and Alguacil Mayor of Santo Domingo: A Biographical SketchLouis André Vigneras — 1 November 1978
  138. 138BookThe First AmericansJoy Hakim — Oxford University Press — 2002
  139. 139BookColumbus and the Ends of the Earth: Europe's Prophetic Rhetoric as Conquering IdeologyDjelal Kadir — University of California Press — 1992
  140. 140BookA Violent Evangelism: The Political and Religious Conquest of the AmericasLuis N. Rivera et al. — Westminster John Knox Press — 1992
  141. 141JournalProphecy and Discovery: On the Spiritual Origins of Christopher Columbus's "Enterprise of the Indies".Pauline Moffitt Watts — 1985
  142. 142BookFerdinand Columbus: Renaissance Collector (1488–1539)Mark P. McDonald — British Museum Press — 2005
  143. 143JournalThe Arthritis of Christopher ColumbusLeonard J. Hoenig — 1 February 1992
  144. 144JournalA Mariner with Crippling Arthritis and Bleeding Eyes.F. Arnett et al. — September 2006
  145. 145Press releaseChristopher Columbus Suffered From a Fatal Form of ArthritisUniversity of Maryland School of Medicine — 6 May 2005
  146. 146BookThe Spanish Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia 2 volumes: A Historical EncyclopediaH. Micheal Tarver et al. — ABC-CLIO — 2016
  147. 147NewsEsclarecen causas de muerte de Cristóbal Colón25 February 2007
  148. 148BookInflammatory Arthritis in Clinical PracticeIan C. Scott et al. — Springer — 2015
  149. 149BookPsoriatic and Reactive Arthritis: A Companion to RheumatologyChristopher T. Ritchlin et al. — Elsevier Health Sciences — 2007
  150. 150JournalLos Colón en la CartujaBaltasar Cuartero y Huerta — 1988
  151. 151BookSeville, Cordoba, and Granada: A Cultural HistoryElizabeth Nash — Oxford University Press — 2005
  152. 152NewsStudy of Christopher Columbus' DNA set to reveal his true originsVicente G. Olaya — 24 May 2021
  153. 153News'Columbus bones' for DNA tests3 June 2003
  154. 154NewsYoung bones lay Columbus myth to restGiles Tremlett — 11 August 2004
  155. 155NewsDNA verifies Columbus' remains in Spain20 May 2006
  156. 156JournalNuevas aplicaciones en identificación genéticaM. J. Álvarez-Cubero et al. — June 2010
  157. 157NewsCountdown begins to discover where Columbus came from19 May 2021
  158. 158BookChristopher Columbus: his life, his works, his remains: as revealed by original printed and manuscript records, together with an essay on Peter Martyr of Anghera and Bartolomé de las Casas, the first historians of AmericaThacher — G. P. Putnam's Sons — 1904
  159. 159NewsColumbus Buried In San Domingo?17 July 1913
  160. 160BookIn Search of a KingdomLaurence Bergreen — Mariner Books — 2021
  161. 161JournalChristopher Columbus and His Enterprise to the Indies: Scholarship of the Last Quarter CenturyDelno West — April 1992
  162. 162BookThe Rites of Assent: Transformations in the Symbolic Construction of AmericaSacvan Bercovitch — Routledge — 2014
  163. 163BookAmerica Discovers Columbus: How an Italian Explorer Became an American HeroClaudia L. Bushman — University Press of New England — 1992
  164. 164BookThe Legacy of Christopher Columbus in the Americas. New Nations and a Transatlantic Discourse of EmpireElise Bartosik-Vélez — Vanderbilt University Press — 2014
  165. 165NewsThe Invention of Christopher Columbus, American HeroEdward Burmila — 9 October 2017
  166. 166BookThe Art of Ill Will: The Story of American Political CartoonsDonald Dewey — NYU Press — 2007
  167. 167BookRivers of North AmericaJack A. Stanford et al. — Elsevier — 2011
  168. 168JournalLa construcción de Colombeia: Francisco de Miranda y su paso por el Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico, 1785–1789Michael Zeuske et al. — 2017
  169. 169Bird's-Eye View of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 18931893
  170. 170BookThe World's Columbian Exposition: The Chicago World's Fair of 1893Norm Bolotin et al. — University of Illinois Press — 2002
  171. 171JournalMining the time-space matrix: Commemorative postage stamps and US world's fairs, 1893–1915Richard Handler — June 2016
  172. 172BookA History of America in Thirty-six Postage StampsChris West — Macmillan — 2014
  173. 173JournalLas fiestas del 12 de octubre y las conmemoraciones americanistas bajo la restauración borbónica: España frente a su pasado colonialDavid Marcilhacy — 2011
  174. 174Columbus Day
  175. 175BookThe Textbook as Discourse: Sociocultural Dimensions of American SchoolbooksManuel Bello et al. — Routledge — 2011
  176. 176JournalOld World globalization and the Columbian exchange: comparison and contrastNicole Boivin et al. — September 2012
  177. 177BookThe Cambridge Companion to Modern Latin American CultureMcFarlane, Anthony — Cambridge University Press — 2004
  178. 178The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and IdeasNathan Nunn et al. — Spring 2010
  179. 179JournalColumbus and the Labyrinth of HistoryJohn Noble Wilford — 1991
  180. 180BookThe Myths That Made AmericaHeike Paul — transcript Verlag — 2014
  181. 181BookArt and Empire: The Politics of Ethnicity in the United States Capitol, 1815–1860Vivienne Fryd — Ohio University Press — 2001
  182. 182JournalPersico's ColumbusNovember 1844
  183. 183BookOut WestUniversity of Nebraska Press — 2000
  184. 184BookRed, White, and Blue Letter Days: An American CalendarMatthew Dennis — Cornell University Press — 2018
  185. 185JournalWho's Afraid of Columbus?William J. Connell — 2013
  186. 186JournalChristopher ColumbusDavid Armitage — 1992
  187. 187JournalMoral Reflections on the Columbian LegacyJames Axtell — 1992
  188. 188BookThe African Diaspora in the Indian OceanJean Houbert — Africa World Press — 2003
  189. 189BookTestimonies from the Columbian LawsuitsWilliam D. Phillips — Brepols — 2000
  190. 190BookNorse Greenland: Viking Peasants in the ArcticArnved Nedkvitne — Routledge — 2018
  191. 191MagazineWhy Do We Celebrate Columbus Day and Not Leif Erikson Day?Becky Little — 11 October 2015
  192. 192History – Leif Erikson (11th century)BBC
  193. 193Rafn, Carl Christian, 1795–1864
  194. 194BookIn Search of First Contact: The Vikings of Vinland, the Peoples of the Dawnland, and the Anglo-American Anxiety of DiscoveryAnnette Kolodny — Duke University Press — 2012
  195. 195BookSeven Myths of the Spanish Conquest: Updated EditionMatthew Restall — Oxford University Press — 2021
  196. 196BookThe White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian, from Columbus to the PresentRobert F. Berkhofer — Vintage Books — 1979
  197. 197JournalDiscovering America Again: The Politics of Selfhood in the Age of Post-Colonial EmpiresFernando Coronil — Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor — 1989
  198. 198BookAn Introduction to Latin American PhilosophySusana Nuccetelli — 31 October 2020
  199. 199JournalThe Invention of America Again: On the Impossibility of an ArchiveRodrigo Lazo — 1 December 2013
  200. 200JournalFive hundred years from now From Discovery to EncounterFélix Fernández-Shaw — UNESCO Digital Library — May 1992
  201. 201BookNorth America: The Historical Geography of a Changing ContinentThomas F. McIlwraith et al. — Rowman & Littlefield — 2001
  202. 202BookThe Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian LegacyKirkpatrick Sale — Plume — 1991
  203. 203BookNot So!: Popular Myths about America from Columbus to ClintonPaul F. Boller — Oxford University Press — 1995
  204. 204Science Versus Christianity?James Hannam — 18 May 2010
  205. 205BookInventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and modern historiansJeffrey Burton Russell — Praeger — 1991
  206. 206BookEuropean Images of the Americas and the Classical TraditionW. G. L. Randles — Walter de Gruyter — 2011
  207. 207BookMythical Indies and Columbus's Apocalyptic Letter: Imagining the Americas in the Late Middle AgesElizabeth Moore Willingham — Liverpool University Press — 2015
  208. 208BookDeath By Black Hole: And Other Cosmic QuandariesNeil deGrasse Tyson — W. W. Norton — 2014
  209. 209ReportGeodesy for the LaymanDefense Mapping Agency — United States Air Force — 1983
  210. 210JournalThief, Slave Trader, Murderer: Christopher Columbus and Caribbean Population DeclineGeorge E. Tinker et al. — 2008
  211. 211NewsFive myths about Christopher ColumbusKris Lane — 8 October 2015
  212. 212Legacy of Christopher ColumbusValerie I.J. Flint — 26 July 1999
  213. 213Dozens of Christopher Columbus statues have been removed since JuneChristopher Brito — 25 September 2020
  214. 214JournalOnce upon a Genocide: Christopher Columbus in Children's LiteratureBill Bigelow — 1992
  215. 215Examining the reputation of Christopher ColumbusJack Weatherford — 20 April 2001
  216. 216Pre-Columbian Hispaniola – Arawak/Taino Indians15 September 2001
  217. 217BookThe Four Voyages of Christopher ColumbusJ.M. Cohen — Penguin — 1969
  218. 218BookArchaeology at La Isabela: America's First European TownKathleen A. Deagan et al. — Yale University Press — 2002
  219. 219BookColumbusHans Koning — Monthly Review Press — 1976
  220. 220BookDiscovery in the Archives of Spain and Portugal: Quincentenary Essays, 1492–1992Lawrence Dixson Lynch — Haworth Press — 1993
  221. 221BookLa caída de Cristóbal Colón: el juicio de BobadillaConsuelo Varela et al. — Marcial Pons Historia — 2006
  222. 222NewsLost document reveals Columbus as tyrant of the CaribbeanGiles Tremlett — 7 August 2006
  223. 223JournalA Modest Proposal for a Moratorium on Grand Generalizations: Some Thoughts on the Black LegendLewis Hanke — Duke University Press — 1 February 1971
  224. 224JournalThe Black Legend Revisited: Assumptions and RealitiesBenjamin Keen — Duke University Press — 1 November 1969
  225. 225JournalThe White Legend Revisited: A Reply to Professor Hanke's 'Modest Proposal'Benjamin Keen — Duke University Press — 1 May 1971
  226. 226JournalFrom Africa to the Ocean Sea: Atlantic slavery in the origins of the Spanish EmpireEmily Berquist Soule — 23 April 2017
  227. 227NewsIn Person; In Defense Of ColumbusMary Ann Castronovo Fusco — 8 October 2000
  228. 228JournalColumbus: the bones and blood of racismBasil Davidson — SAGE Publishers — January 1992
  229. 229NewsColumbus Day must be abolishedBill Bigelow — 10 October 2015
  230. 230BookConstructing the Spanish Empire in Havana: State Slavery in Defense and Development, 1762–1835Evelyn Jennings — LSU Press — 2020
  231. 231JournalA genetic history of the pre-contact CaribbeanD. M. Fernandes et al. — 23 December 2020
  232. 232Ancient DNA shines light on Caribbean history, prehistoryStephanie Dutchen — 23 December 2020
  233. 233BookThe Columbian ExchangeAlfred W. Crosby — Greenwood Publishing Group — 1972
  234. 234Book1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus CreatedCharles C. Mann — Alfred A. Knopf — 2011
  235. 235BookThe Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its SolutionsJason Hickel — Windmill Books — 2018
  236. 236JournalEarth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492Alexander Koch et al. — 1 March 2019
  237. 237JournalElite Revisionists and Popular Beliefs: Christopher Columbus, Hero or Villain?H. Schuman et al. — 28 February 2005
  238. 238BookChristopher Columbus, MarinerSamuel Eliot Morison — Little Brown & Co. — 1955
  239. 239BookBorn to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650Noble David Cook — Cambridge University Press — 1998
  240. 240BookSmallpox and its eradicationFenner F, Henderson DA, Arita I, Ježek Z, Ladnyi ID — World Health Organization — 1988
  241. 241BookCaciques and Cemí idols: the web spun by Taíno rulers between Hispaniola and Puerto RicoJosé R. Oliver — University of Alabama Press — 2009
  242. 242NewsDeadly Diseases: Epidemics throughout history
  243. 243BookThe Cambridge encyclopedia of human paleopathologyArthur C. Aufderheide et al. — Cambridge University Press — 1998
  244. 244JournalHealth conditions before Columbus: paleopathology of native North AmericansDebra L. Martin et al. — BMJ — 2002
  245. 245BookThe Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in AmericaAndrés Reséndez — Houghton Mifflin Harcourt — 2016
  246. 246NewsThe new book 'The Other Slavery' will make you rethink American historyDavid Treuer — 13 May 2016
  247. 247JournalEarth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492Alexander Koch et al. — Elsevier — 1 March 2019
  248. 248BookAmerican Holocaust: The Conquest of the New WorldDavid E. Stannard — Oxford University Press — 1993
  249. 249JournalThe Controversial Skill of Columbus as a Navigator: An Enduring Historical EnigmaDouglas T. Peck — 2009
  250. 250BookThe Columbus Myth: Did Men of Bristol Reach America Before Columbus?Ian Wilson — Simon & Schuster — 1991
  251. 251Sebastiano del Piombo (Sebastiano Luciani) | Portrait of a Man, Said to be Christopher Columbus (born about 1446, died 1506)
  252. 252BookMary, Mother and Warrior: The Virgin in Spain and the AmericasLinda B. Hall — University of Texas Press — 2004
  253. 253JournalVisualizing Imperium: The Virgin of the Seafarers and Spain's Self-Image in the Early Sixteenth CenturyCarla Rahn Phillips — 20 November 2018