Christopher Columbus' Discovery Of America

Christopher Columbus was born in the year 1451 in The Republic Of Genoa.

In 14733, he was hired as a Merchant Mariner for King John II of Portugal. Portugal was gaining power on the seas by colonizing Atlantic Islands and establishing trade with African Kingdoms.

In 1480, Portugal found out that the Indian Ocean was on the other side of Africa.

During Portugal's rise in power, a group of European scholars thought that the earth was smaller than what was previously believed. Columbus wanted to sail to India for riches and approached Portugal to fund his expedition. King John didn't believe in the theory that the Earth was small and refused to find his voyage. Columbus then approached Spain. Spain wanted to challenge Portugal's growing influence and therefore decided to fund Columbus' expedition.

• Columbus started his voyage to India with his 3 ships - the Pinta, the Nina and the Santa Maria from the Spanish Port of Palos on August 3, 1492.
• After a stop on Grand Canary, the rest of the trip took 5 weeks.
• On October 12, 1492 land was spotted and it was an island.  Because Columbus believed in the small world theory, he thought he was near Japan but he had actually landed in Guanahani and termed it as San Salvador. San Salvador is now called The Bahamas. He called the natives of the island 'Indians' because India was what many Europeans called Asia at that time.