We’re living now in the year 2022, which means it’s a little over 530 years ago that Columbus sailed away from Spain in 1492, in order to find a new route to the Orient.

Columbus discovered America?

Instead, he found a new continent, America. It made Columbus (at least for a while) famous, rich, and powerful. And that is a little bit strange, and also a bit annoying.

Because for starters, he did not actually succeed in his mission to find India. Yes, he found new lands but did not realize he did. And a few others were there first. People were living there- the Indians, as we called them, now they’re called first nations, or indigenous people, discovered America thousands of years earlier, and Vikings were there around the year 100 AD., and even Saint Brandon seems to have visited the Americas centuries before Columbus did.

So what is all the fuzz about Columbus discovering America about? I mean, even if Columbus did ( which he did not), it is not that great an achievement, is it? America is, after all, quite big. It is in fact, sailing West, and considering it separates two quite big oceans, almost impossible to miss…

Trade routes – spices

Columbus, of course, set out to find new trade routes because of spices. Spice was the Bitcoin of the 15th century. It was worth almost nothing, but people in Europe were literally dying to get to it.

 
There was a problem, however. Between Europe and its precious spices lay the Muslim world, which made things a bit…complicated, to say the least.

Oh, Muslims were happy to sell spices to European tradesmen, but at a much higher price- they were, after all, bitter enemies. And European powers, that were emerging at the time, were sick and tired of that. So that brought a period of exploration, discoveries, and adventure.

Luckily enough for you, you don’t have to sail for months, putting your life in danger on a small wooden ship on a vast ocean, to get your spices- you can buy your Penja peppers online, right here, right now.

 
Click here to read this interesting article about the spice trade.