A Brief Biography of Christopher Columbus

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Little may one know about Christopher Columbus, other than the fact that “Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492”. Even though he was claimed to have discovered the Americas, he was never the first to arrive there because (according to historians) the Vikings were there first. But, his discovery led other people in Europe know about the Americas therefore changing the world. Columbus shaped the world as we know it today.
Columbus was born around 1451 in the republic of Genoa (what today would be in Italy). As a teenager, he participated in some trading voyages in the Mediterranean and Aegean seas for a job to earn some money. When Columbus was young, voyages had always fascinated him so he decided to start sailing the seas, hoping he could discover something new. His first voyage to the Atlantic Ocean in 1476 nearly killed him when a group of French privateers attacked Columbus and his crew off the coast of Portugal. So Columbus swam all the way to Lisbon which is also where he settled and married Felipa Perestrello. Together the two had a son named Diego in the year 1480. Columbus’ wife died soon after Columbus went to Spain and then had a second son Fernando who was born out of Wedlock in 1488 with Beatriz Enriquez de Arana. Columbus studied Mathematics, Astronomy, Cartography, and Navigation at Lisbon which is where Columbus would start his quest to finding a new world.
On his mission to discover a new world, he took his plan first to a Portuguese king for a three ship voyage, which was rejected. Then he took his plan to Genoa and then to Venice but was rejected there too. He then went to the Spanish monarchs Isabella of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon in 1486. He proposed the idea of why not sail west across the Atlantic in...

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...reasure, etc. shaping both America and Europe because it was something new and exciting. Columbus is important to history because he shaped the world as we know it.

Works Cited

1. "Christopher Columbus." History.com. A+E Television Networks, LLC, 2013. Web. 13 Dec. 2013. .
2. "Christopher Columbus." Primary History- Famous People. BBC, n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2013. < http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/famouspeople/christopher_columbus/>.
3. "Christopher Columbus." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Dec 12 2013. .
4. First Voyage. when in time. Web. 18 Mar. 2014. .
5. Stapley, Mildred B. Christopher Columbus. 1st ed. New York, NY: The Macmillan Company, 1915. Print.

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