Christopher Columbus and his adventurous life
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer who changed the course of history and opened up a new world for the Europeans. Columbus’s voyages to the New World in the late 15th century played a significant role in extending European influence, discovery, and colonization of the Americas.
Columbus was born in the city of Genoa, Italy in 1451. He grew up in a family of wool weavers and received limited education. Columbus’s obsession with the sea began at a young age, and he went to sea at the age of 14. Over the years, Columbus became an experienced sailor, merchant, and navigator. He learned to make careful observations of the winds and currents and became skilled in the use of astrological instruments.
In the late 15th century, European trade in Asia was limited to expensive overland routes controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Columbus, along with other explorers had a grand vision of finding a sea route to Asia that would bypass these expensive and dangerous land routes. Columbus believed that there was a shorter route to the east by sailing west across the Atlantic Ocean. The idea of a new route to Asia had been percolating in the minds of many European explorers, but Columbus was the first to convince a monarch to finance his voyage. He found support from King Ferdinand
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In 1492, he set sail from Spain with three ships, the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. After a long and dangerous voyage, Columbus landed in what he thought were the islands of the East Indies but he had actually found the Caribbean islands. He named the native people he found there as Indians, thinking he had reached India. On his second voyage in 1493, Columbus established a colony on the island of Hispaniola, where he enslaved native people to dig gold and build settlements. Columbus returned to Spain on his second voyage with a lot of gold, which only increased the Spanish interest in the New