Cristoforo Colombo [in Italian] also known as Christopher Columbus, was the oldest of the five children in his Italian family. He was born in the year 1452 in Genoa [modern Italy]. Because he was an innkeeper, he had to work hard and almost every day. Cristopher only had a little formal education. Because of this, he also became an apprentice at sea when he was ten. Even though he sailed quite a bit, the knowledge of mathematics, astronomy and Latin came with experience. He continued to sail for the most part of his youth and later became a sailor (EBSCO Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia).
In 1492, Christopher Columbus started his first expedition into the unknown after getting sponsored by Spain Kingdom of Castile (Christopher Columbus
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Some historians call it the “God, Glory and Gold” to describe the motives generating the overseas exploration (Encyclopedia). Although Columbus might have been passionate about sailing and exploring new routes and ways to trade better between continents, most experts do think that he had this idea behind everything as well. “‘Gold’ refers to the search for material gain through acquiring and selling Asian spices, African slaves, American metals, and other resources” (Encyclopedia). This means that as well as finding a way to transfer goods between countries [mainly Spain and India], he was on a conquest to find a personal route to do business himself. The problem trading spices such as nutmegs, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and peppercorns (The Spice Trader) back then was that the transportation costs could even make the price of the spices a hundred times the original. This is because as people traded, they wanted to profit from transporting them and therefore they raised the price every time they sold it onwards. What Columbus wanted to do was to buy the spices [mainly from India] for a cheap price and only travel a direct route straight to Spain and from there to rest of Europe. Of course, he saw a huge business opportunity here which made him more motivated. This was also one of the reasons King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain sponsored Columbus. They claimed that if they would find a direct way to Asia, Spain would become more powerful and could control the trading routes to Spain and to the whole of Europe. “‘God’ refers to the militant crusading and missionary traditions of Christianity” (Encyclopedia). Despite Columbus not having to want this too much, another major motivation of his sponsors was the spread of religion. At the time, the Church was one of the most powerful organizations in the world and especially in Spain. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were great supporters of the Catholic