THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT ALSO TO LOOK AT KIP FENN, A MAJOR NOVEL ABOUT THE 21st CENTURY
- freely available on this site
Columbus, Christopher ___ 1451-1506
___ Italian ___ sailor, explorer
BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
The eldest of five children, Columbus
was born in Genoa into a wool weaving family, possibly of Spanish Jewish
descent. How he became a sailor is unclear, although it seems he may have
worked first as a commercial agent in his home city, a busy port. He may
also have been in the service of a pirate for a while. He made his first
trading voyage to Khios in the Aegean Sea. On one early voyage, his vessel
sank during a battle off the Portuguese coast, and it is thought he swam
ashore. He then settled in Portugal, and married, in 1479, the daughter
of the governor of the island of Porto Santo, who bore him one son. In the
belief that the world was smaller than thought, and round, and that Asia
could be reached quickly by sailing west, he petitioned the Portuguese court
for funds, only to be rejected. He moved to Spain where his plans were more
favourably received. Here, Beatriz Enriquez became his mistress and bore
him a second son, Ferdinand Columbus. In 1492, Columbus set off on the first
of four famous voyages. On the this first one, he explored the Caribbean
islands. On the second, he founded the first European town in the New World;
and, on the third, he discovered the mainland of South America. By the time
of his fourth and somewhat ill-fated voyage, Columbus had fallen out of
royal favour. His journals, which have been translated into English many
times, provide a unique record of this famous explorer's voyages, and of
his discoveries.
One
biography link
DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1492-1493 1498 ___ maritime travel
exploration weather nature
WEB TEXT LINKS
etext
long
extracts
short
extract
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Journal of Christopher Columbus
The Four Voyages of Columbus
May 2005
THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
Please
email if you have any corrections, additions or comments. |
IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS:
1) The first line of basic information
may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different
names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or
uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown,
or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British'
a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was
compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts
were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if
they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates
and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with
caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are
only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies.
4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges,
and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising.
I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some
variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited
myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their
original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the
titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries. |