1.  "I have always read that the world..."

   This passage is from a letter written by Christopher Columbus.  It proves that he was well aware that the earth is shaped like a sphere, and that he could give several ways to prove the fact.  Ptolemy was a famous Greek geographer and astronomer of the 2nd century A.D. who had written about the spherical shape of the earth.  In a lunar eclipse, the shadow thrown by the earth onto the moon is always curved.  That is only possible if the earth is a globe.  The elevation of the North Star above the horizon changes with movement of the observer north and south, again, something that is only possible if the earth is a globe.  The other "experiments" Columbus mentions may be the fact that a ship sailing out to sea seems to vanish as it moves over the curved surface of the globe. 

   This is a passage from the journal Columbus kept on his voyage in 1492.  It describes the first sighting of land in the New World on October 12 of that famous year.  The actual island of his first landing is uncertain.
 

3.  "We have an illness only gold will cure."

   Hernando Cortes, leader of the Spanish forces that conquered the Aztec empire in 1521, is said to have made this odd claim to the Aztec ruler Montezuma.  The Spanish did indeed have an "illness" - greed - for gold that drove them to conquer the lands of Mexico, Central America, and much of South America.
 

1.  An artist's depiction of Christopher Columbus, based on a painting made well after the death of the explorer.  No images of Columbus made in his own lifetime are known to exist.  Many details of his life and voyages, however, did survive into the written record of history.

2.  A drawing from the 1500s of a ship of the type Columbus used.  While some details about the three ships he used in 1492 are known, their actual appearance is a matter of guesswork.  Their names, however, are well known:  the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.

3.  A drawing made by an early explorer showing natives in the West Indies making corn pancakes, or what today would be called tortillas.  Corn was completely unknown to Europeans before they made contact with the New World in 1492.