1451

Genoa, Italy

May 20, 1506

Valladolid, Spain

Italian explorer

Portrait: Christopher Columbus. Reproduced by permission of Corbis-Bettmann.

"Thirty-three days after my departure from Cadiz I reached the Indian sea, where I discovered many islands, thickly peopled, of which I took possession without resistance in the name of our most illustrious Monarch, . . . "

Christopher Columbus.

Christopher Columbus was the Italian explorer credited with "discovering" the New World (a European term for the continents of North America and South America). Columbus made four voyages to the Caribbean and South America between 1492 and 1504. As governor of Hispaniola (an island in the Caribbean), he oversaw the establishment of the first European settlements in the Americas. Columbus later brought over other Europeans, an act that resulted in devastating consequences to the people he called "Indians." The mistreatment of Native Americans by the Spanish colonists was so cruel that it became known in Europe as...