Christopher Columbus - Иностранные языки

                                  Exploration

                              Christopher Columbus

   300-400 years ago a great deal of the world was undiscoveried. But now
   there seems little more to explore, the wild north was conquered, the
   jungle was conquered too. And it seems that all the pages of the great
   book called “The Earth” has been filled in, but exploration still goes on.

   In the 15th century people knew only 3 continents: Europe, Asia and
   Africa. They knew nothing about America. The man who was thought to be the
   discoverier of America was born in 1451 in Italy. His name was Cristopher
   Columbus.

   Knowing that the earth was round he desided to reach India by sailing to
   the west. It was very difficult for him to organize an expedition as
   nobody wanted to help him. At last the Spanish government gave him some
   money. In the 1492 he sailed with 3 small ships in to the Atlantic ocean.
   They had been sailing for more than 2 months and at last they saw land.
   Columbus was certain that the lands he discoveried were part of India and
   he called these islands “The West Indias”. He made 3 voyagers to America.
   His last voyage was made in 1502-1504. After that, seriously ill, he
   remained in Spain until his death. He died believing that Cuba was part of
   Asia. Colum-buse's voyagers gave Europe first important knowledge of the
   new world. Many places have been named in his honour. America however was
   named after another explorer Amerigo Vespucci.

   Americus Vespucius (or Amerigo Vespucci, as the name is spelled in
   Italian) was born in Florence, Italy, in 1454. He was in Spain at the time
   of Columbus' first and second voyages. In a letter, written in 1504 and
   printed in 1505, he claimed to have made four voyages, on the first of
   which, in 1497, he explored the South American coast. This would make him
   the first European to land on the American continent, for at that time
   Columbus had only reached the outlying islands. Most scholars reject
   Vespucius' version of this voyage. Vespucius perhaps did accompany a
   Spanish expedition that of Alonzo de Ojeda to South America in 1499, and
   in 1501 and 1503 he probably went with Portuguese expeditions. Probably he
   never commanded an expedition himself and, of course, was not the first
   person to set foot on the continents to which his name is given. Vespucius
   died in Seville, Spain, in 1512.