Today we’re going to know about the famous Explorer Christopher Columbus. Christopher Columbus most famous for his historic voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. He was born in 1451 in Genoa Italy the son of a weaver Columbus began sailing as a young teen. He sailed to many places Greece, England, Ireland, Iceland, Portugal,
West Africa and Spain.

In 1476 Columbus was shipwrecked off the coast of Portugal he swam to shore and settled in Lisbon. It was there that he was first married and his first son Diego was born in 1485. His wife died and Columbus moved to Spain a few years later. His second son Fernando was born it was about this time that Christopher Columbus began to
be fascinated by the idea that it might be possible to sail west from Europe to reach Asia.
Trade of spices and silk with India and China was incredibly important and incredibly profitable but the journey whether overland or by sea was long and dangerous if Columbus could succeed in sailing directly from Europe
to Asia by going west, he could make a lot of money and become very wealthy.
It is a misperception that most people back then thought that the world was flat in fact most people knew that the
world was round but nautical experts thought that Columbus had estimated the distance from Europe to Asia to be much too small. They thought that he would only make it halfway there before running out of food and supplies because of this he could not convince anyone to give him the money.

He needed for the voyage his idea was rejected in Portugal Genoa and Venice. Then he went to Spain in 1486 and tried to persuade King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to finance his expedition but they were at war and did not have time or money for exploration. Six years later in 1492 the war ended and the king and queen agreed to give Columbus the money he needed.

On August 3rd 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed west from Spain with three ships the Nina the Pinta and the Santa Maria. Two months later on October 12th they reached the Bahamas landing on an island that Columbus named San Salvador.
Columbus was convinced that he had reached the Indies a series of islands in Southeast Asia and so he called the
people that he met there Indians he didn’t find very much gold on San Salvador and so he sailed around exploring other islands. On Christmas Day the largest ship the Santa Maria ran aground and had to be abandoned. so,  Columbus left 39 crewmen in what is now Haiti to start a settlement and hopefully find more gold.

Columbus took some of the native people with him and returned to Spain in March of 1493.
Besides the people and a little gold
Columbus brought back things like
pineapples turkeys parrots and tobacco to prove that there were riches to be found across the ocean he was rewarded by being named a
the oceans II and was appointed Viceroy and governor of the new lands word of his discovery spread quickly through Europe and before the year was out Columbus set sail leading a second much larger expedition with 17 ships and more than 1,000 men they were ready to begin colonizing the islands Columbus had found when they arrived they found that the original settlement had been
destroyed and everyone left behind had been killed by the native people.

They established a new settlement and began to search for gold but when little was found Columbus enslaved the native people and forced them to help search for more riches on his third voyage.

Columbus finally reached the Continental mainland when he landed in Venezuela unfortunately conditions at the
settlement were very bad and the settlers blamed Columbus in 1500 he was arrested and forced to return to Spain.

He was eventually freed but he lost his titles and much of his money in 1502 he made a fourth and final voyage to the New World still searching for a Passage to India or China.
He returned to Spain in 1504 and on May 20th 1506 at the age of 54.  Christopher Columbus died probably still believing that he had successfully sailed to Asia.

It is true that Christopher Columbus was not the first person to discover the
Americas that would be the ancestors of the native inhabitants and he wasn’t
even the first European to reach the new world. A voyage by Leif Erikson about
five hundred years earlier succeeded in reaching Canada however the voyages of Christopher Columbus had a huge impact in the history of the world because he brought backward of these new lands to Europe and began a new period of trade and colonization plants animals people and diseases went back and forth across the ocean and had a lasting impact on almost every culture on the planet,
because of this we commemorate Columbus’s first landing every October on Columbus Day.