- [Narrator] In the
last video we discussed how the Portuguese began to really expand their exploration around Africa with the invention of the caravel, a fast new ship that
could sail into the wind, and how Spain, newly united
with Ferdinand and Isabella, completed its campaign to
expel Muslims from Spain, the Reconquista, in 1492
and began to look outward for an opportunity to
compete with Portugal. And it was into that
moment that they received an interesting proposal
from this man here, Christopher Columbus. So who was Christopher Columbus? Well, he was a navigator. He was born around 1451 we think in Genoa, which is today in Italy. And he had sailed quite a bit in his life. He was also a voracious
reader thanks to the invention of the printing press back in 1450. And one book that he
read with great interest was the account of Marco Polo
and his travels in China. And Columbus dreamt of getting to China and there accessing
riches, silk and spices, and maybe even converting
people living in Asia to Christianity, and teaming up with them in a new crusade to expel
Muslims from the Middle East. Now there are two common
myths about Columbus that I'd like to dispel. One of these is that Columbus
was the first European to discover the Americas. In fact we know that around 1000 CE the vikings of Norway
had colonized Greenland and had explored around
what is today Canada. So you might be asking,
"Okay, well if the vikings "discovered America, why
aren't we talking about "the vikings in this video?" And the short answer is
the viking settlement in the Americas did not last very long, less than a generation. And it also didn't really get
well known outside of Norway, so it didn't have the worldwide
impact on colonization that Columbus's voyage would have. The other myth about
Columbus is that he was the lone visionary who knew
that the world was round. Everybody else thought
that the world was flat and Columbus proved them wrong. In fact most learned people
had known that the world was round since the time
of the ancient Greeks. What they thought instead
was that the world was simply too big. They estimated that it
was about 25,000 miles in circumference, which is
pretty close to the truth, and that even if you could
sail out here into the ocean, you would run out of
supplies and die long before you ever hit land 'cause they had no idea that the Americas were over here. Columbus however had done
some different calculations and he thought that the
circumference of the world was only about 16 to 18,000 miles. So that the coast of Japan
was about 3,000 miles to the west of Europe. Now he was wrong, but he
got very lucky because about 3,000 miles to the west of Europe he encountered landfall. He just didn't know that what
he found there wasn't China. So Columbus has this dream
and he kind of shops it around the courts of Europe
looking for royal patronage. And first he tries the
Portuguese because they are the reigning leaders of navigation. And they turn him down
saying his idea is too risky. He also tries France and
England with similar results. Finally he tries Spain. And Ferdinand and Isabella
agree that they will stake him. They give him three ships
and a crew of 87 men. And in August of 1492 he takes off, makes a brief stop in the Canary Islands, and then turns west into open waters. And in October of 1492 he made landfall, and this is what he found. So he landed on the small island
that he named San Salvador which is today in the Bahamas. And then he continued to
explore around the coast of Cuba that he called Juana. And then he ended up in the
island that he called Hispianola which is today the island of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. And we'll talk more about
who he met in the new world in the next video.