"Just over 500 years ago, on 3 August of 1492, Christopher Columbus, the admiral from Genoa underwritten by Ferdinand II and Isabella I of Spain, set off on the first of 4 trips across the Atlantic. He sailed from Iberia to the Caribbean, then on to the South and Central American mainlands. Colonies were founded by Columbus and his younger brother Bartholomew; waves of colonists followed in their wake."
"Horrible things happened. Millions of indigenes died. Many were killed in battle; many more, up to 90% in some places, died of smallpox or measles, influenza or other diseases. And millions of Africans were enslaved. Those numbers approached 4 million by 19 June 1865, when the last slave was finally freed. Progress and Change In Europe But some things changed for the better. Just 25 years after Columbus made landfall in the Bahamas, Martin Luther nailed 95 Theses to the door of his Wittenberg church,"
Humans have migrated and explored for millennia, moving across Africa, Eurasia and into the Americas over the past 300,000 years to avoid conflict and maintain independence. Maritime voyages since 1492 accelerated scientific, religious, philosophical and governmental transformations. Columbus's voyages led to colonies, mass indigenous mortality from violence and disease, and the enslavement of millions of Africans until emancipation in 1865. European developments such as the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution improved navigation and enabled frequent ocean crossings. Future ambitions for space exploration include lunar bases and potential missions to Mars. These processes produced technological progress and severe human costs that reshaped global demographics and power structures.
Read at Psychology Today
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]