MovieChat Forums > 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) Discussion > I did get it?

I did get it?

posted 20 years ago by Tham66
10 replies | jump to latest

They told in the movie that another italian have descover america. wasn't columbus the first to descover america??? Im so lost....

[–] sivasothi 20 years ago

Read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus

[–] Desmond_Crekker 18 years ago

Amerigo Vespucci discovered the mainland of america. Christoph Columbus has made the first step and discovered islands near the mainland. Vespucci explored the country and first claimed that this land must be a new continent and not "India". America was called america because of him: amerigo->america!

But:
In the 15th century he was considered as the official discoverer of america, until the end of 16th century when the descendents of Columbus made a lawsuit against this wrong fact.

[–] cbconrad 18 years ago

It is fun reading and learning about Christopher Columbus. Some of the movie stuff is not true. But I still enjoy watching Columbus movies. I played the part of Columbus in historic costume for 7 years in our Renaissance Faire at the University of Great Falls. I would enjoy hearing from others interested in the man.
Rich at [email protected]

The truth is that on his 3rd Voyage, which is not mentioned in the Movie, Columbus made landfall at Trinidad, off the coast of South America, July 31, 1498. A few days later he sailed around the western part of the island into The Gulf of Paria, sailed north, and made landfall on the Paria Peninsula, which is part of Venezuela. The date was Sunday, August 5, 1498.

He was the first European to set foot on the mainland. He beat Amerigo Vespucci by 10 to 12 months. Columbus, however, did not know where he was. He thought the Paria Peninsula was an island, and that he was off the Southeast shore of China. Check out CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, MARINER by Samuel Eliot Morison. It is a condensed version of the large volume he wrote in 1942 that won a Pultizer Prize for Biography. It has been translated into half a dozen languages.

Also, near the end of the movie, Columbus is told by Queen Isabella that he cannot bring his two brothers with him on the fourth voyage. I had never read anything about a stipulation like that--don't know that is true. Whether she so stipulated or not, Bartholomew Columbus went on the fourth voyage. Columbus convinced him to go. He did not captain any of the vessels.
And Columbus also brought his 14-year-old son,his future biographer.

Again, it is fun reading and learning about Christopher Columbus. I played the part of Columbus in historic costume for 7 years in our Renaissance Faire at the University of Great Falls. I would enjoy hearing from others interested in the man. Rich at [email protected]

[–] RabbieB 18 years ago

i'll second the recommendation for Samuel Eliot Morison's book on columbus. excellent history, well written, easy to read.

hope the dvd of this movie is available soon!!

A Man's a Man for A' That

[–] dalmatica 17 years ago

I'd also recommend Martin Dugard's "The Last Voyage of Columbus".

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Voyage-Columbus-Expedition-Including/dp/0316154563/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-3410335-6066528?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183735151&sr=8-1

[–] srodgers-6 18 years ago

America was discovered no later then 12,000 years ago by the original inhabitance of the continent. There is proof of many other cultures coming in contact with North and South America before Columbus, such as Chinese, African and Pacific Islander explorers. The earliest known Europeans to find North America were the vikings, lead by Leaf Erickson around 1000 C.E. Columbus has long been discredited as the first Discover of the Americas, being that people were there when he arrived. Columbus retains nothing more then the title of the first Italian to land on the Americas.

[–] Ohiowatha 18 years ago

Sure, lots of people made it to the Americas; the only distinction is that Amerigo Vespucci was the first European to recognize it as a new continent. Ancestors from Asia came over via an ice bridge over the Bering Straight, however, it is highly unlikely that any civilizations made contact with the Americas by boat before the Vikings. There is no evidence to be sure the Chinese (let alone Pacific Islanders) made it as far east as present day California, Mexico, Peru or Chile. So, while Columbus was the first official "capitalist explorer" to reach the Americas, he died ignorant of the fact that his visitations were not to the East Indies as he had anticipated. It was not until Vewspucci, a cartographer by trade, put two and two together and realized he had something much greater on his hands than a western sea-route to the "East."

[–] JustinWilliamson 18 years ago

Regardless of who beat Columbus to the Americas, the important part is that he established the reliable routes and paved the way for permnament colonization. He deserves credit for it. Yes there are pretty good theories that the Chinese, Pacific Islanders and even Africans made it to America before the Vikings, but they did not continue their explorations and colonization.

Now one of the best things I heard kicked around about Columbus a few years ago was the idea that he may have in fact known exactly what he was doing and wasn't so ignorant of his discovery after all. If I recall, the argument posed a few questions:
1. If he thought he was in East Asia, why did he claim those islands?
2. Up to this point he was pretty good at his calculations and navigations, so how in the world did he make the mistake of 5,000 miles?
3. Why didn't he bring much to trade with if he was really trying to make it to East Asia?
4. He made several references to having maps and knowledge of lands to the West.

And there were a number of others. Some easily explained, others a bit of a mystery.

[–] RabbieB 18 years ago

hey justin,

some excellent questions. i would just like to make a comment on two of them.

"2. Up to this point he was pretty good at his calculations and navigations, so how in the world did he make the mistake of 5,000 miles? "

the problem was longitude. up until much later, an accurate, simple and reliable means to measure longitude was not available:

http://www.smm.org/boghopper/longitude.html

this methodolgy allowed later explorers to do some very accurate mapping (some of capt james cooks chart measurements were still being relied on until the 1990's.)

also columbus had accecpted a flawed estimation of the circumferance of the earth.

"4. He made several references to having maps and knowledge of lands to the West."

whose maps were these and where did this knowledge come from?

A Man's a Man for A' That

[–] Razzbar 12 years ago

Nice job of ignoring the *consequences* of Columbus' voyages.

The Americas are the way they are because of the Spanish and English conquests that were begun with Columbus' voyages.

That others visited from other places may well be true, but they did nothing of any consequence. They came, they saw, they left. Columbus' voyages were the first to actually have a large scale impact for both hemispheres.