Simon Mattacks
speaker
2,981 appearances
17 recordings
3 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 13 Sep
Simon Mattacks’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 14 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 3.
Appearances
Cuba, of course, was not China.
And some of the men had their doubts.
But Columbus wanted to convince Spain that he was making gains in Asia as planned.
However, there was a problem, or rather multiple problems.
The geographical confusion,
the increasingly hostile relationships with the local people, and the lack of gold.
Columbus had made big claims about the resources in these lands, including an abundance of gold.
It turned out that no matter how much pressure he exerted on the local people, there wasn't actually all that much.
Just because some of the native people wore gold jewelry, it didn't mean that there were vast supplies waiting to be mined.
We can imagine that Columbus felt under pressure.
There were high expectations, expectations that he himself had helped to set, and he had to answer to the Spanish crown.
While this doesn't excuse his behavior, it may in part help to explain it.
Columbus's fleet returned to Spain in 1496.
The following year, another European navigator made a journey west.
His name was Giovanni Caboto, though he's better known as John Cabot.
Like Columbus, Cabot had been searching for a sea route to Asia.
Instead, he found North America, landing in present-day Canada.
Cabot's mission was sponsored by King Henry VII of England.
This just goes to show what a dynamic era it was in terms of sea exploration.
European powers were more than willing to fund such voyages in the hopes of gaining wealth, territory, and influence.
Showing 1921–1940 of 2,981 · page 97 of 150
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