Nothing is known about what kind of education Columbus received and where. some believe that he was generally a capable self-taught person. But his son Fernando claimed that his father studied at the university of the Italian city of Padua, although he was not found in the lists of students at this university.
History has not left us a single lifetime image of Columbus. Therefore, each artist depicted him in his own way, based on his imagination - sometimes bald, sometimes with thick hair, sometimes shaved, sometimes with a beard.
Now about Columbus's discovery of America. It turns out that it has not yet been established reliably on which island he named San Salvador(“Savior”), Columbus landed, reaching the shores of a then unknown continent. It was believed that it was located in the group of the Bahamas and is now called Samana Kai.
However, many scientists now dispute this opinion. For example, the American scientist J. Winslow claims that the historical discovery occurred on one of the islands Berry, located slightly north of the Bahamas. He bases his conclusions on descriptions in the surviving diaries of Christopher Columbus and the data he provided regarding the speed of his caravels, as well as on the fact that the current passing in the area of the Bahamas was obstructed sailing ships the navigator to approach them. Whether this is true or not, the question remains open. Finally, paradoxically, for centuries many cities of the Old and New Worlds have been proud of the fact that they have the tomb of Christopher Columbus. And this despite the fact that, unlike the place and date of birth, it is reliably known that the great navigator died 20 May 1506 in a small Spanish town Valladolid and was buried in one of the crypts local monastery. But three years later, his son Diego ordered the coffin to be moved to Monastery of Santa Maria de Las Cuevas in Seville. Columbus's remains rested here for about 30 years. Then, in 1542 in honor of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of America and at the request of Diego’s widow, the remains of Columbus, according to the will of the greatest navigator, were transported to America, to island of Haiti, and buried in the crypt of the city cathedral Santo Domingo- the capital of the current Dominican Republic. As local guides proudly inform numerous tourists, the sarcophagus is still there. However, according to the biographers of the great navigator, his ashes did not find rest there either. In 1795, the island went to France, the Spanish admiral Artisabel ordered the crypt to be opened and the remains of Christopher Columbus to be transported to “Spanish soil” - to the island that then belonged to her Cuba, V Havana. Here they were buried with due honors in the local cathedral January 19, 1796
However, there is no unity on this issue: in Santo Domingo they continue to claim that they have the remains of the great navigator, and they mistakenly transported to Havana... the remains of his son Diego. In 1877, this was confirmed by a special commission that opened the crypt and lead coffin. However, another commission of the Spanish Academy of Sciences, working in 1879, spoke out in favor of the fact that the remains of Christopher Columbus rested in Havana at that time.
In the meantime, there are disputes about the date, place of birth and burial place of the great navigator, five cities in different countries showing his graves...
As recently reported in the press, it became known that at the end of the last century, the ashes of Christopher Columbus were for some reason transferred by Cuba to the University of Pavia (Northern Italy), where they... were lost. And only by chance they found it in one of the university safes. This begs the question: where will the great wanderer finally find peace?
Glowing circles in the Indian Ocean
In summer 1976 Soviet scientific vessel "Vladimir Komarov" plied the waters of the Arabian Sea. Shortly before midnight, when all the crew members off duty were already resting, the ship's captain V. Petrenko was urgently called to the captain's bridge, where the watch navigator pointed to the water instead of reporting.
Some kind of luminous circle with a radius of 150–200 m was rotating around the ship. The circle was constantly rotating counterclockwise around a single center, from which 8 long rays extended. The echo sounder recorded a depth of 170 m, and the water temperature was 26°C. Half an hour later, this luminous circle disappeared without a trace and subsequently did not appear again.
However, this was by no means the first meeting of sailors with an extraordinary natural phenomenon, which for some reason appears only in the waters Indian Ocean: It has been known to scientists for quite some time. I first met him in 1879 crew of an English ship "Vulgur". At 22:00 on July 10, not far from the Hindustan Peninsula, English sailors saw from the starboard and port sides two huge luminous circles with peculiar “spokes” of 8 rays each. Moreover, one of them rotated clockwise, and the other counterclockwise. Captain Evans determined that their rotation speed was 130 km/h.
However, despite the fact that Evans was a fairly famous scientist, a member of the British Geographical Society, his message was not taken seriously. But already in the next one, 1880 sailors of an English ship "Shakhkikin", who were crossing the eastern Indian Ocean witnessed this phenomenon again. Captain R. Harris even directed the ship to the very center of the circle.
That same year, in the Persian Gulf, sailors of an English ship "Patna" saw on their way two luminous circles that rotated in opposite directions at high speed - 160 km/h.
Since then, reports of encounters with mysterious luminous circles in the Indian Ocean have poured in like a cornucopia. TO 1973 g., when witnessing this unusual phenomenon became the crew of a Soviet ship « Anton Makarenko», There have already been more than sixty such observations.
It has been established that the mysterious circles “behave” differently. As a rule, one or two luminous circles appear on the surface of the ocean, each with radial rays extending from a single center, often several hundred meters long. Sometimes they shine so brightly that you can even read.
After a short time, the amazing circles disappear. The nature of these phenomena has not yet received its explanation. Some scientists believe that this is the result of a high concentration of plankton in these waters, which when certain conditions floats to the surface and forms luminous spots. But how can we explain their regular circular shape and the rays that emanate from one center, as well as the enormous speed of their circulation? For more than 100 years this extraordinary phenomenon is a mystery.
You, of course, guessed it: we will talk about ghost ships, called flying dutchmen- after the name of one of these ships, which, as they say, “without a rudder and without sails,” suddenly appears in front of modern ships, and then seems to disappear into the ocean mist.
Summer 1976 The scientific vessel "Vladimir Komarov" plied the waters of the Arabian Sea. Shortly before midnight, when all the crew members off duty were already resting, the ship's captain V. Petrenko was urgently called to the captain's bridge, where the watch navigator pointed to the water instead of reporting.
Some kind of luminous circle with a radius of 150-200 m was rotating around the ship. The circle was constantly rotating counterclockwise around a single center, from which 8 long rays extended. The echo sounder recorded a depth of 170 m, and the water temperature was 26 degrees Celsius. Half an hour later, this luminous circle disappeared without a trace and subsequently did not appear again.
However, this was by no means the first meeting of sailors with an extraordinary natural phenomenon, which for some reason occurs only in the waters of the Indian Ocean: it has been known to scientists for quite some time. The crew of the English ship Vulgur first met him in 1879. At 10 p.m. on July 10, not far from the Hindustan Peninsula, English sailors saw from the starboard and port sides two huge luminous circles with peculiar “spokes” of 8 rays each. Moreover, one of them rotated clockwise, and the other counterclockwise. Captain Evans determined that their rotation speed was 130 km/h.
However, despite the fact that Evans was a fairly famous scientist, a member of the British Geographical Society, his message was not taken seriously. But already in the next year, 1880, the sailors of the English ship Shahkikin, which was crossing the eastern part of the Indian Ocean, again witnessed this phenomenon. Captain R. Harris even directed the ship to the very center of the circle.
In the same year, in the Persian Gulf, the sailors of the English ship Patna saw two luminous circles on their way, which rotated in opposite directions at a high speed of 160 km/h.
Since then, reports of encounters with mysterious luminous circles in the Indian Ocean have poured in like a cornucopia. By 1973, when the crew of the Soviet ship Anton Makarenko witnessed this unusual phenomenon, there were already more than sixty such observations.
It has been established that the mysterious circles “behave” differently. As a rule, one or two luminous circles usually appear on the surface of the ocean, each with radial rays extending from a single center, often several hundred meters long. Sometimes they shine so brightly that you can even read.
After a short time, the amazing circles disappear. The nature of these phenomena has not yet received its explanation. Some scientists believe that this is the result of a high concentration of plankton in these waters, which, under certain conditions, floats to the surface and forms luminous spots. But how can we explain their regular circular shape and the rays that emanate from one center, as well as the enormous speed of their circulation? For more than 100 years, this extraordinary phenomenon has been a mystery.
For several centuries, in different oceans of our planet, periodic events have occurred. unexplained phenomena- giant rotating circles appear on the surface of the water, illuminated from the ocean depths. Asian sailors gave them the name “Buddha Wheels,” and European sailors called them “the devil’s carousel.” What is it? Scientists still cannot give an answer.
The world first learned about this phenomenon in the spring of 1879. The English warship Hawk was plowing the waters of the Persian Gulf on April 13 when the sailors noticed two huge luminous circles rotating in different directions at a speed of more than 130 km/h. Captain Evans reported this to the Admiralty, but no one took the message seriously.
A similar spectacle was observed in subsequent years by sailors on other ships. It was determined that the radius of the glowing "Wheel" varied from 300 to 600 meters.
In 1902, in the Gulf of Guinea, the ship "Fort Salisbury" passed straight in circles on the water; Not far from their ship, the sailors saw some kind of structure with glowing lights. Noticing the approach of the ship, the strange object went under water. Moreover, all crew members felt as if the rays were shining through absolutely everything.
In the spring of 1962, the sailors of the ship Telemachus witnessed how the light rays began to decrease in diameter, their rotation speed also decreased, and soon they disappeared under water.
And in 1967, in the Gulf of Thailand, from the ship "Tlenfol - Loch", a fifty-meter object was noticed on the surface of the water, from which rays were emanating several kilometers long.
The echo sounder of the Russian research ship "Vladimir Vorobyov" in the Bay of Bengal recorded at a depth of 20 meters, under the ship, a massive object emitting rays (the depth of the ocean in this place was about 200 m. After half an hour, everything suddenly disappeared. The interesting thing is that all members the crew felt panic; even the sleeping sailors who saw nothing felt causeless horror and pressure on their ears (although no one heard any sound. The ship’s personnel took samples of the water - there was not a trace of luminous plankton in it...
In 1973, the crew of the Anton Makarenko in the Gulf of Malacca also observed “luminous wheels”, which, rotating at high speed, suddenly began to change their appearance. The ends of the rays bent, and the image on the water looked like giant flower. An hour later everything disappeared...
In the summer of 1978, the sailors of the ship "Novokuznetsk" in the Gulf of Guaya - the keel saw four twenty-meter luminous lines in front of the bow of the ship and two lines near the starboard side. What happened next shocked everyone: right in front of the ship, a white flattened object, the size of a large watermelon, emerged from the water at high speed, flew around the ship on all sides and plopped down into the water again.
Crew members of the Soviet ship "Professor Pavlenko" even took photographs of a similar phenomenon in the Gulf of Neretva in June 1984. They saw a luminous spot in the depths of the waters, from which there were clearly defined rings. Their speed was more than 100 m/min.
To date, there are about a hundred reports of mysterious circles, confirmed by photographs and readings from on-board instruments. In all cases, their glow is so bright that it can be read.
Scientists have put forward many hypotheses, but none of them have been able to explain these anomalous phenomena.
Some believe that these are luminous marine organisms rising from the bottom, but they cannot move so clearly and straightforwardly and reach speeds of more than 150 km/h. Academician A. N. Krylov explained these phenomena by optical processes on the surface of water and in the air, and called them “Ghost of the Ocean”. Other scientists try to attribute this to various underwater civilizations, others - on aliens from outer space. Still others explain the appearance of circles by the eruption of underwater volcanoes. Allegedly, volcanic emissions come into contact with ocean water- and you get a luminous cloud. But why such clear circles? And how to explain the fact that glows were observed where there are no underwater volcanoes?
For several centuries, people have not been able to solve the riddle of the “Ghosts of the Ocean”. Perhaps humanity has encountered extraterrestrial intelligence. And who knows whether sailors, while sailing in ocean waters, will encounter something unknown and dangerous?
In various areas of the world's oceans, huge rotating circles under water are observed, consisting of light rays emanating from a central source. In the east they were called “Buddha wheels”, and European sailors called them “the devil’s carousel”.
The first such message came from the captain of the English warship Hawk, who reported to the Admiralty that on April 13, 1879, he observed two huge underwater “wheels” in the Persian Gulf, each with 16 spokes made of light rays. Both wheels rotated in opposite directions, with the ends of the beams moving at a speed of about 130 km/h.
Similar phenomena were observed in 1880 from the ships "Shakhin" off the Malabar coast and "Patna" in the Persian Gulf, where it was determined that the length of these rays was about 600 m, while the length of such rays observed in 1907 from the ship " Delta" in the Strait of Malacca and in 1908 from the ship "Consweller" in the Gulf of Thailand, was determined to be 300 m.
In 1902, in the Gulf of Guinea, when the ship Fort Salisbury was passing through the center of such a luminous circle, a dark object about 150 m long was seen resting on the water on the horizon, with lights glowing at both ends. But when the ship headed towards him, the object plunged into the water.
In 1906, in the Gulf of Oman, rays emanated from a luminous underwater object, which moved at a distance of about 8 m from each other and illuminated the underwater part of the ship in a regular sequence. At the same time, the crew members had the impression that they were passing through the hull of the ship. From the Telemachus ship in May 1962, they observed how the rays bent as they rotated, began to rotate more slowly and shortened, and after 20 minutes they disappeared.
Captain Baudelaire in the Strait of Hormuz watched as a rotating wheel with a diameter of 300-500 m, formed by the rotation of light rays emanating from one point, approached his ship under water.
In 1967, from the ship Glenfalloch in the Gulf of Thailand, rotating circles were observed, consisting of rays several kilometers long, which emanated from a luminous convex object with a diameter of 20-30 m, located on the surface of the water.
The crew of the scientific vessel "Vladimir Vorobyov" in the Bay of Bengal observed the rotation underwater of 8 radial white rays 200 m long, emanating from an object of significant mass, which was recorded by an echo sounder at a depth of 20 meters under the ship, while the depth of the ocean in this place was 170 m. The whole phenomenon lasted about 30 minutes. It is also characteristic that with the appearance of the rays, the sleeping sailors woke up from a feeling of fear.
In 1973, the crew of the motor ship "Anton Makarenko" in the Strait of Malacca observed how luminous spots appeared on the water in all directions from the ship to the very horizon, which stretched into stripes 10-15 m wide, radiating from the ship, with intervals between them of 40 m. Then these stripes began to rotate faster and faster counterclockwise, like the spokes of a wheel, and the ends of the strips curved. The whole phenomenon lasted 40-50 minutes.
In July 1978, the crew of the motor ship "Novokuznetsk" in the Gulf of Guayaquil, not far from the equator, observed how 4 luminous stripes 20 m long appeared near the bow of the ship, and two other stripes 10 m long approached the starboard side of the ship. After this, 100 m in front of the ship, a white flattened ball the size of soccer ball and quickly flew around the ship. Then he hovered for several seconds at a height of 20 m above the water, rose up, described a zigzag and sank back into the water.
Members of the crew of the Soviet ship "Professor Pavlenko", located in the Neretva Gulf of the Adriatic Sea, on June 8, 1984, observed a light spot appearing on the surface, from which luminous rings with clear boundaries diverged across the water in all directions. The radial speed of their propagation was about 100 m/min. Photographs were taken of this phenomenon.
The mystery of luminous circles in the ocean cannot be explained by moving swarms of luminous microorganisms due to the rectilinear nature of the rays. In addition, microorganisms do not move at a speed of 150 km/h.
Professor University of Hamburg Kall tried to explain this phenomenon by the successive illumination of microorganisms in place under the influence of seismic waves from the ocean floor, but this does not explain the symmetry of the circles and their uniform rotation. And water samples taken by the personnel of the vessel “Vladimir Vorobyov” immediately after observing the rotating circle did not contain any luminous plankton.
However, there is no unity on this issue: in Santo Domingo they continue to claim that they have the remains of the great navigator, and that they mistakenly transported... his son Diego to Havana. In 1877, this was confirmed by a special commission that opened the crypt and lead coffin. However, another commission of the Spanish Academy of Sciences, working in 1879, spoke out in favor of the fact that the remains of Christopher Columbus rested in Havana at that time.
In the meantime, there are disputes about the date, place of birth and burial place of the great navigator, five cities in different countries display his graves...
As recently reported in the press, it became known that at the end of the last century, the ashes of Christopher Columbus were for some reason transferred by Cuba to the University of Pavia (Northern Italy), where they... were lost. And only by chance they found it in one of the university safes. This begs the question, where will the great wanderer finally find peace?
Glowing circles in the Indian Ocean
In the summer of 1976, the Soviet scientific vessel Vladimir Komarov plied the waters of the Arabian Sea. Shortly before midnight, when all the crew members off duty were already resting, the ship's captain V. Petrenko was urgently called to the captain's bridge, where the watch navigator pointed to the water instead of reporting.
Some kind of luminous circle with a radius of 150-200 m was rotating around the ship. The circle was constantly rotating counterclockwise around a single center, from which 8 long rays extended. The echo sounder recorded a depth of 170 m, and the water temperature was 26 degrees Celsius. Half an hour later, this luminous circle disappeared without a trace and subsequently did not appear again.
However, this was by no means the first meeting of sailors with an extraordinary natural phenomenon, which for some reason occurs only in the waters of the Indian Ocean: it has been known to scientists for quite some time. The crew of the English ship Vulgur first met him in 1879. At 10 p.m. on July 10, not far from the Hindustan Peninsula, English sailors saw from the starboard and port sides two huge luminous circles with peculiar “spokes” of 8 rays each. Moreover, one of them rotated clockwise, and the other counterclockwise. Captain Evans determined that their rotation speed was 130 km/h.
However, despite the fact that Evans was a fairly famous scientist, a member of the British Geographical Society, his message was not taken seriously. But already in the next year, 1880, the sailors of the English ship Shahkikin, which was crossing the eastern part of the Indian Ocean, again witnessed this phenomenon. Captain R. Harris even directed the ship to the very center of the circle.
In the same year, in the Persian Gulf, the sailors of the English ship Patna saw two luminous circles on their way, which rotated in opposite directions at a high speed of 160 km/h.
Since then, reports of encounters with mysterious luminous circles in the Indian Ocean have poured in like a cornucopia. By 1973, when the crew of the Soviet ship Anton Makarenko witnessed this unusual phenomenon, there were already more than sixty such observations.
It has been established that the mysterious circles “behave” differently. As a rule, one or two luminous circles usually appear on the surface of the ocean, each with radial rays extending from a single center, often several hundred meters long. Sometimes they shine so brightly that you can even read.
After a short time, the amazing circles disappear. The nature of these phenomena has not yet received its explanation. Some scientists believe that this is the result of a high concentration of plankton in these waters, which, under certain conditions, floats to the surface and forms luminous spots. But how can we explain their regular circular shape and the rays that emanate from one center, as well as the enormous speed of their circulation? For more than 100 years, this extraordinary phenomenon has been a mystery.
Mysterious wanderers of the World Ocean
And now, despite the educational and entertaining direction of our narrative, we simply cannot ignore the mysterious and tragic events that play out from time to time in the vastness of the World Ocean and indicate that the oceanic elements are not to be trifled with.
You probably remember Lermontov’s famous lines:
Along the blue waves of the ocean, only the stars sparkle in the sky, a lonely ship rushes, rushes with all sails. You can't see the captain on it, you can't hear the sailors on it...
The poet dedicated his poem to a different topic - Napoleon's exile on the island of St. Helena. But regarding the sea wanderers, the peculiar silent ghosts of the past, which are still encountered from time to time in the vast expanses of the ocean, he is also right in his own way.
You, of course, guessed it: we will be talking about ghost ships, called the flying Dutchmen - after the name of one of these ships, which, as they say, “without a rudder and without sails” suddenly appear in front of modern ships, and then seem to dissolve into ocean haze.
The fact is that a ship in distress, abandoned by its crew, sometimes stays afloat for a long time. In our time, a modern large-tonnage vessel can also turn out to be such a “Dutchman”.
No one can name the number of these wanderers. Sometimes there were up to three hundred meetings with them in a year. Let's look at just a few of the most memorable ones.
So, at noon on December 4, 1872, from the English brig Deia Gratia, 600 miles west of Gibraltar, an unknown ship was seen moving under sail in a clearly unpredictable and uncontrollable mode. Climbing aboard the sailing ship, whose name, as it turned out, was “Mary Celeste,” the sailors from the “Deia Gratia” were convinced that no one was steering the ship, they were only flapping the tattered sails in the wind against the masts and yards. On the table in the captain's cabin there were maps and sailing directions, as well as a log book, last record in which she testified that the ship had safely reached almost the same point where it had been noticed from the Deia Gracia. There was no lifeboat on the ship. It also turned out that the obligatory chronometer, sextant, and also tables of solar declination were missing. The ship's compass lay broken in the corner of the cabin.
