Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator. Between and , he made three more voyages to the Caribbean and South America, believing until his death that he had found a shorter route to Asia.
Columbus has been creditedโand blamedโfor opening up the Americas to European colonization. Christopher Columbus, whose real name was Cristoforo Colombo, was born in in the Republic of Genoa, part of what is now Italy. He is believed to have been the son of Dominico Colombo and Susanna Fontanarossa and had four siblings: brothers Bartholomew, Giovanni, and Giacomo, and a sister named Bianchinetta.
In his 20s, Columbus moved to Lisbon, Portugal, and later resettled in Spain, which remained his home base for the duration of his life. Columbus first went to sea as a teenager, participating in several trading voyages in the Mediterranean and Aegean seas.
One such voyage, to the island of Khios, in modern-day Greece, brought him the closest he would ever come to Asia. His first voyage into the Atlantic Ocean in nearly cost him his life, as the commercial fleet he was sailing with was attacked by French privateers off the coast of Portugal. His ship was burned, and Columbus had to swim to the Portuguese shore. He made his way to Lisbon, where he eventually settled and married Filipa Perestrelo.
The couple had one son, Diego, around His wife died when Diego was a young boy, and Columbus moved to Spain. He had a second son, Fernando, who was born out of wedlock in with Beatriz Enriquez de Arana. After participating in several other expeditions to Africa, Columbus learned about the Atlantic currents that flow east and west from the Canary Islands. The Asian islands near China and India were fabled for their spices and gold, making them an attractive destination for Europeansโbut Muslim domination of the trade routes through the Middle East made travel eastward difficult.
