You may have learned in school that Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492 in the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. Actually, he didn’t discover America and there is some question as to the names of his ships.
His four trips from Spain across the Atlantic — in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502 — did, however, change human history forever. He started what is known as the Columbian Exchange. The historic exchange of plants, animals, disease, culture, technology and people between the Old and New Worlds. The Old World, for example, got chocolate (and many other things) and the New World got wheat, along with bubonic plague, chicken pox, cholera, malaria, measles, typhoid, etc., which decimated the populations of indigenous peoples Columbus found living on the islands he “discovered.”
As for Columbus himself, he mapped the coasts of Central and South America but never set foot on North America, and died thinking he had discovered Asia. He ruled the Caribbean islands as governor so brutally that, according to US-History.com: “Even his most ardent admirers acknowledge that Columbus was self-centered, ruthless, avaricious, and a racist.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/10/11/why-is-columbus-day-still-a-u-s-federal-holiday/?tid=pm_pop_b
Eryn Sanclemente
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