Christopher Columbus died on this date in 1506. He believed his ultimate mission, by winning gold from the New World for Spain, was to finance a Crusade into Palestine to capture Jerusalem and rebuild
Solomon's Temple there.
Columbus' obsession with end-times and eschatology
led him to transcribe by hand a book of apocalyptic quotations he carried with him on his voyages, which he called The Book of Prophecies. He
believed the end of the world would occur in 1656.
