Christopher Columbus

person · earth · Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean

The Genoese navigator whose 1492 crossing under Castilian sponsorship began sustained contact between the hemispheres, and whose reasoning was wrong in a specific and instructive way. He had not underestimated the difficulty of sailing west; he had underestimated the size of the Earth, adopting a short circumference and an over-long eastward extension of Asia that together placed Japan roughly where the Caribbean actually is. The scholars who advised against the voyage were right about the distance, and had there been open ocean where he expected Asia, the ships would have been lost. What he did understand better than his critics was the wind: he ran south to the Canaries to pick up the north-east trades outbound, and returned on a northerly track that found the westerlies — the shape of the Atlantic round trip, established on the first attempt. He made four voyages, went to his death maintaining he had reached the outskirts of Asia, and the continents were named for someone else.