LYCOS RETRIEVER 
1492: Christopher Columbus
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On November 4, 1492, when Columbus landed on a Caribbean island, his diary records that the Taino natives grew a grain called mahiz which was "well tasted baked, dried and made into flour." In English, the word became "maize," but early settlers stubbornly continued to call the grain "Indian corn." They ... refused to eat it, a fact that more than once nearly destroyed the New World's colonial settlements.
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On August 2, 1492, Columbus set sail in search of the East Indies. The voyage was financed by Ferdinand and Isabella by making the city of Palos pay back a debt to the crown by providing two of the ships, and by getting Italian financial backing for part of the expenses. The crown had to put up very little money from the treasury.
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On October 12, 1492, Christopher and his crew spotted land for the first time in three months. Christopher thought he had reached the Far East, but he had actually landed in the Americas.
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The widely published report of his voyage of 1492 made Columbus famous throughout Europe and secured for him the title of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and further royal patronage. Columbus, who never abandoned the belief that he had reached Asia, led three more expeditions to the Caribbean. But intrigue and his own administrative failings brought disappointment and political obscurity to his final years.
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Between 1492 and 1504, Christopher made a total of four voyages to the New World. On his First Voyage, Christopher discovered the Americas. Christopher made more discoveries on his next three voyages.
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European extermination of Natives started with Christopher Columbus' arrival in San Salvador in 1492. Native population dropped dramatically over the next few decades. Some were directly murdered by Europeans. Others died indirectly as a result of contact with introduced diseases for which they had no resistance -- mainly smallpox, influenza, and measles.
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Christopher Columbus