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Columbus’s landfall on San Salvador

Columbus’s sailors sighted the island of Guanahani in the Bahamas; Columbus went ashore, named it San Salvador and claimed it for the Catholic Monarchs. This day is regarded as the date of the European discovery of America.

Date
12 October 1492exact dateDate in the Julian calendar
Place
San Salvador (Guanahani)approximate locationtoday: San Salvador Island, Bahamas · Latin America
Participants
Christopher Columbus, Crown of Castile
Threads
Age of Discovery and the New World
Also known as
Открытие Америки; Гуанахани

Exactly which island the local people called Guanahani has not been established: the present-day island of San Salvador is considered the most likely candidate, but there are other theories. Believing that he was off the coast of the Indies, Columbus called the inhabitants “Indians”, a name that came to be applied to all the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

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Sources

  1. Wikipedia (English): Voyages of Christopher Columbus
  2. Wikipedia (Russian): Первая экспедиция Христофора Колумба
  3. Wikipedia (Russian): Открытие Америки
  4. Morison S. E. Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus. — Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1942.
  5. Wikidata: Q221474