1492Primary sourceWell documented
Columbus Reaches the Americas
On the timeline · around 1492 ·
What happened
Sailing west for Spain in search of a route to Asia, Christopher Columbus instead made landfall on 12 October 1492 in the Bahamas, where he encountered the Taíno people. Believing he had reached the Indies, he explored the Caribbean and returned to Spain to announce his 'discovery.'
Why it matters
Columbus's voyage opened permanent — and, for Native peoples, catastrophic — contact between Europe and the Americas, and began the European colonization of the hemisphere.