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Question What: Christopher Columbus Benefits

The explorer Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain: in, and He was determined to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia, but he never did.

Quick Facts

Instead, he stumbled upon the Americas. During the 15th and 16th centuries, leaders of several European nations sponsored expeditions abroad in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast undiscovered lands. Starting in aboutsmall Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along the African coast, carrying spices, gold, slaves and other goods from Asia and Africa to Europe. Christopher Columbus, the son of a wool merchant, is believed to have been born in Genoa, Italy, in When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a merchant ship. He Christopher Columbus Benefits at sea untilwhen Christopher Columbus Benefits attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap of wood and made his way to Lisbon, where he eventually studied mathematics, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

The Age of Discovery

He also began to hatch the plan that would change the world forever. At the end of the 15th century, it was nearly impossible to reach Asia from Europe by land.

The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking to the sea: They sailed south along the West African coast and around the Cape of Good Hope. But Columbus had a Christopher Columbus Benefits idea: Why not sail west across the Atlantic instead of around the massive African continent?

He argued incorrectly that the circumference of the Earth was much Christopher Columbus Benefits than his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that the journey by boat from Europe to Asia should be not only possible, but comparatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. He presented his plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not until that he found a sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. Columbus wanted fame and fortune.

Who Was Christopher Columbus?

Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along with the opportunity to export Catholicism to lands across the globe. Columbus, a devout Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about this possibility.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but on one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador. In Januaryleaving several dozen men behind in a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republiche left for Spain.]