Columbus Discovery of America哥伦布发现美洲

     The year 1492 was a turning point in Spanish history; but America was discovered by an explorer(开拓者；探险家）who carried the Spanish flag.This last venture(探险） meant that Spain was able to establish a vast empire which it was to hold on to for the next 300 years.

     Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa in northern Italy, and when he grew up he became a ship’s navigator(航海家).Then, at the age of 30,he retired from the sea and settled(定居）in Lisbon with his Portuguese wife, where he set about and studying and making maps. He soon became convinced( 说服；使信服）that it would be possible to reach the islands of the East Indies, together with their important wealth of spices, by sailing westwards rather than eastwards . He spent several years going round the courts（宫廷） of the Europe badgering the kings to give him money for his adventurous mission（任务）. He was rejected by the kings of Portugal, England and France,but in the end Queen Isabella of Spain agreed to finance him.

     Columbus set sail on 3^rd August1494 inhis flagship, the Santa Maria, accompanied by two other small ships: the Pinta and the Nina. After many weeks at sea, when nearly everyone had given up hope of ever reaching land, Columbus and his men began to see signs of shore life: branches of trees floating(漂浮）on the ocean, and flocks of birds. They knew that at last land could not be far off and sure enough, on the morning of 13th October 1492, they were able to land on the tiny island of San Salvador in the Bahamas.

     It was not long before Columbus was off on his second voyage, this time with a band of 1,500 men in a fleet of 20 ships. It was not till his third voyage, in 1498, however, that Columbus set foot on the mainland （大陆）of South America- at the mouth of the Orinoco River in Venezuela. He made one last voyage（航海） across the Atlantic before he died peacefully in Spain in 1506. It is interesting that Columbus never knew that he had discovered a new continent; he simply thought he had found a quick way to the East Indies. This is why, of course, he christened the island which he discovered “Las Indias”.