The time of the discoverers of new lands for Europeans was the end of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The most curious and restless people are grouped into three countries: Portugal, Spain and Russia.
The most important discoveries of two centuries
At the end of the eighties of the fifteenth century, the great sailors from Portugal already searched the western and southern coasts of distant Africa, in 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed to the Bahamas, the Lesser Antilles and discovered America, and 1497 also became important for geographical discoveries: Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to India, circling the African continent. And in 1498, Columbus, Vespucci and Omeha became the pioneers of South America, which they studied for five years, as well as Central America.
The great Russian sailors explored mainly the Arctic Ocean. They went around the whole great north of Asia, discovered the Yamal and Taimyr Peninsulas, the Chukchi Peninsula, and proved that America is not a continuation of Asia, leaving the Arctic Ocean through the Bering Strait to the Pacific Ocean. This expedition was led by the great Russian navigator S. Dezhnev, as well as F. Popov. Since 1735, Khariton and Dmitry Laptev traveled through the Siberian seas, one of which was subsequently named after their surname. The names of the great sailors are usually present on the map they compiled.
Dutchman V. Barents bypassed Novaya Zemlya and Svalbard. The Englishman G. Hudson with associates discovered Greenland, Baffin Land, Labrador Peninsula, Hudson Bay. The Frenchman S. Champignon discovered the northern Appalachian Mountains and all five North American Great Lakes. Spaniard L. Torres visited New Guinea. The Dutch V. Janszon and A. Tasman mapped Australia, Tasmania and the islands of New Zealand.
Something About Columbus
For the descendants of Christopher Columbus remained a mysterious man . Photos, of course, have not been invented yet. But portraits remained. On them we see a man with a wise look and, it would seem, far from any adventurism. The whole person and the fate of Christopher Columbus, full of anxieties, are ambiguous, foggy, you can write an epic about this, and even there you can’t accommodate all the vicissitudes of his life.
According to one of the many versions, he was born on the island of Corsica in 1451. Fierce scholarly disputes still continue on this subject: six cities in Italy and Spain swear that it is there that the birthplace of Columbus is.
His whole life is a legend. One thing is clear - he lived in Lisbon, and before that he traveled a lot on ships in the Mediterranean Sea. From there, from Portugal, the most important travels of Columbus began, which have not yet been made by the greatest sailors of the world.
Island Cuba and others
In 1492 he set foot on the island of Cuba. There Columbus found one of the most cultured peoples of Latin America, who built huge buildings, sculpted beautiful statues, grew cotton, already familiar to Europe, and completely unknown potatoes and tobacco, which later conquered the whole world. The birthday of Christopher Columbus is still a national holiday on this island.
The pioneer of the tropical strip of the Atlantic, the first to penetrate the Caribbean Sea, discover South America and the Isthmus of Central, map the Bahamas, the Lesser and Greater Antilles , the islands of the Caribbean, the island of Trinidad - this is Christopher Columbus. The photo reveals a handsome man, calmly looking from the portrait, without the slightest trace of anxiety on his face.
Let the Europeans claim that the way to Columbus to North America was trodden by Vikings from Iceland from the eleventh century. In the Middle Ages, walking the sea across the ocean for the tenth time is incredibly difficult and dangerous. And in any case, there are too many lands on two American continents that nobody discovered before Columbus.
From the messengers of the court to the great mariners
Fernand Magellan was born in 1480 in northern Portugal and was orphaned at the age of ten. In search of a piece of bread, he settled in the royal court - a delivery man. And he went to sea for the first time at twenty-five, although he adored the sea from childhood. Magellan did not in vain dream of the great sailors and their discoveries. He managed to get into the team of F. de Almeido, who first moved the ships under the flag of Spain to the East.
Magellan turned out to be a very capable student, quickly mastered the marine business in all professions. Remaining in India, having lived in Mozambique, he finally became a captain. It was possible to return to their homeland.
For five years, he convinced the Portuguese ruler of all the benefits of eastern expeditions, but things did not go smoothly, and in 1517, Magellan entered the service of King Charles, so far the first and Spanish, but in the future, the emperor of the Roman Empire.
Trip around the world
In 1493, the Pope issued a bull stating that the new lands being discovered to the east are Portuguese and Spanish to the west. Magellan led the expedition to the west to bring evidence that the islands where the spices grow belong to Spain.
And this journey, with such a small and mercantile purpose, turned into the world's first round-the-world trip. Far behind were the great sailors, and their discoveries, which were called Magellan in children's dreams. No one has yet undertaken such a voyage, all the more so since the earth is round, far from all travelers suggested at that time.
Magellan did not have time to present the world with evidence of his assumptions, he died on this expedition - in the Philippines. Nevertheless, he died confident in his innocence. The remnants of the team returned to Spain only in 1522.
Cossack chieftain
Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnev - the Arctic navigator, Cossack chieftain, explorer and pioneer of many geographical objects, was born in a Pomeranian family in Pinega in 1605. He began the Cossack service as an ordinary in Tobolsk, then he was transferred to Yeniseisk, and even later to Yakutia. Everywhere he mastered new lands, rivers, even crossed the East Siberian Sea on a makeshift tuss from the mouth of the Indigirka to Alazeya. From there, he already advanced with his comrades on two makeshift ships to the East.
In the Kolyma delta, they climbed up the river and founded the city of Srednekolymsk. A few years later, the expedition to the east continued - to the Bering Strait, which will not be the Bering Strait for another eighty years: Dezhnev was the first to cross the strait. The easternmost point of the mainland is the cape, named after the discoverer of Dezhnev. In addition, the island, bay, peninsula and village bear his name. In the center of the city of Veliky Ustyug in the Vologda Oblast, a monument was erected to him. Reliable was a man. Honest and hardworking. Hardy. Strong. He fought. Of the thirteen wounds, three were serious. But always and in everything he strove for peace.
South mainland
By the seventeenth century, Europeans saw the main outline of the planet Earth. However, unexplored areas were huge. The most cunning colonizers sought to scout these territories. Historians have not found out how the ordinary Dutch peasant Abel Tasman became a sailor, but his travels brought invaluable discoveries to the world.
Aristotle even before our era was sure of the existence of an unknown southern land. “Terra Australis Incognita” (“The Unknown Southern Land”), he indicated in his notes. It was this land that the sailor Tasman set off to search for on the Zekhan sailing ship. In the southern latitudes, nature is inhospitable. Icy wind and almost no sun. Monstrous storms send south and southwest. Such waves do not happen near the mainland, which means that the South Land is somewhere not here. And Tasman, on reflection, changed the previously laid course. There was complete uncertainty ahead.
Right choice
After the change of course, nature had mercy on the sailors - the clouds remained on the sidelines, and the sun quickly warmed the ship. Soon, the earth appeared. It so happened that Tasman landed on the island, which will be named after him, this is much south of the mainland. He simply missed Australia itself. Tasmania was surveyed, mapped. Then the city will rise here. But at that time there was nothing more to do there - the climate was unpleasant, the rocks were gloomy, the nature was wild, the local population could not offer anything.
Tasman went on. He was incredibly lucky to discover the islands. Next was New Zealand. True, the local Maori met Tasman, like all subsequent travelers, unfriendly. Rather, even hostile. When trying to survey the new land, several crew members were killed. Therefore, Tasman left this work to his descendants, and Zekhan immediately went away. He did not find a shortcut to Chile. But proved that Australia exists.