Columbus sights land in the Caribbean

After about five weeks crossing the Atlantic, Christopher Columbus's ships reached an island in the Bahamas that the local Lucayan people called Guanahani. The voyage began lasting contact between Europe and the Americas.

The exact island is debated. The date follows the Julian calendar used at the time.

Context

Columbus sailed under the Spanish crown with three ships, the Santa Maria, Pinta and Nina, leaving Palos in southern Spain in early August 1492. After a stop in the Canary Islands he headed west in early September. Reports say a lookout on the Pinta sighted land in the early hours of October 12, and Columbus went ashore later that day.

He named the island San Salvador. Many scholars identify it with today's San Salvador Island in the Bahamas, but Britannica notes that some evidence points instead to Samana Cay, about 80 miles to the southeast. Because Columbus's log survives only in an abridged copy, the exact landfall cannot be settled with certainty.

The people he met were Taino, a group that included the Lucayans of the Bahamas. The voyage opened the way for Spanish colonization, which brought disease, forced labor and population collapse to Indigenous communities. Some countries and communities now mark the October holiday as Indigenous Peoples' Day for that reason.