Christopher Columbus was born in 1451 in Genova, Italy and was the eldest son of Domenico Colombo and Susanna Fontanarossa. Christopher Columbus was a self taught man and is known to have very little formal education. Columbus started his expedition on the sea very early and his first voyage was to the Aegean Island of Chios in 1475. He bravely survived a shipwreck off Cape St. Vincent a year later and he had to swim ashore. Later in 1477 he sailed to England and Ireland with Portuguese marine.
Christopher married Felipa Perestello e Moniz in 1479. She gave birth to their son Diego in 1480. Unfortunately Felipa died in 1485. Later Columbus was in a relationship with Beatriz Enriquez de Harana of Cordabo who was the mother of his second son. Columbus supported Enriquez though he never marries her. During the mid 1480’s Columbus became very obsessed with his plans of discovering and his dream was to find a westward route to Asia. After trying to convince Queen Elizabeth of Castile and her husband, King Ferdinand of Aragon for nearly 7 years he succeeded in getting their support for the voyage. A professor in world geographical history Christina Freville says that Christopher was already rejected twice before finally accepting his offer.
It was on August 3rd 1492 that Columbus moved with a fleet of three ships on the Tinto river in southern Spain. The three ships were named Nina, Pinta and the Santa Maria. Out of the three Columbus captained Santa Maria. On October 11, 1942 they spotted Caribbean island off southeastern North America. Christina Freville points out that Columbus at this point thought that he had made it to Asia, and called this area as Indies, and called the people as Indians.
Columbus went on a larger expedition in Sept. 25, 1493 with a fleet of 17 ships and around 1500 men to loot gold and to capture the Indians as slaves. He sailed along the length of southern Cuba. It was Columbus who spotted and named the island of Dominica on November 3, 1493. Later in 1498 Columbus went for his third expedition and sailed further south to Venezuela. Christina Freville says that Christopher Columbus was the first European to set foot in America since the Viking Leif Ericsson.
On his last expedition Christopher Columbus sailed to Mexico, Honduras and Panama in 1502. He was searching for the strait to India but did not succeed and was forced to return back. His health declined by the end of this voyage. Columbus was in a lot of pain because of arthritis and on May 20th 1506 Columbus died in Vallodid.
Christina Freville says that even though Columbus never got to the Indies he was still the greatest sailor of his time. He sailed across 5000 miles of ocean and succeeded to find the same island over and over again without having an accurate map or a device like a compass. Though he never could reach the United Stated he reached as close as 90 [...]