Columbus's Voyage to the Americas (1492)

Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas initiated the Columbian Exchange — the largest biological, cultural, and demographic transformation in human history. It also triggered the decimation of indigenous populations through disease, enslavement, and violence. An estimated 90% of the Native American population died within a century, a mortality rate 30% higher than the Black Death in Europe. The debate over whether Columbus should be celebrated as an explorer or condemned as a coloniser intensifies every October.