How did Christopher Columbus' discovery change history?

Although Columbus was not the first to discover the American continent, it was his expedition that changed the world forever. One of the consequences that not too many people like to speak about is the genocide of local civilizations by European conquerors - better equipped and more advanced technologically than native Americans. The old and the new world had "exchanged" with plants (such as corn, tomatoes, and potatoes), animals (cows and sheep were unfamiliar to the locals) and diseases - for example, syphilis, previously unknown in Europe, wiped out thousands of people in the Old World. This is widely known as the so-called Columbian Exchange.