Christopher Columbus Facts – Interesting Facts About Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus facts: Fun facts about Christopher Columbus. Christopher Columbus major accomplishment is discovering America. An Italian explorer who made four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. Christopher Columbus is credited for opening up the Spanish colonization in the New World. His father was Domenico Colombo, a wool merchant and owner of a cheese stand. Susanna Fontanarosso was his mother. Explore interesting facts about Christopher Columbus as this is a one stop to know all about Christopher Columbus.

Christopher Columbus Facts

Christopher Columbus (31 October 1450 and 30 October 1451– 20 May 1506) was an Italian explorer, colonizer, navigator and citizen of Republic of Genoa, Italy.

Christopher Columbus discovered the “New World” of the Americas in 1492 on an expedition sponsored by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain.

Columbus did not believe that he found a new world. He even died believing that he found a new passage to India. He justified his claim by proposing that Earth was pear shaped and not spherical.

Columbus made a total of four voyages to the New World. His voyages took him to Caribbean Islands, South America and Central America.

Horses were introduced into the New World by Columbus.

Columbus has never set foot on the North American mainland.

Norse Viking Leif Eriksson and not Columbus was the first person to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Eriksson has landed on Newfoundland around 1000 A.D. nearly 5 centuries before Columbus set sail.

Skeleton evidence suggests that syphilis had been brought back to the Old World by Columbus and his crew. As one of the first global diseases, it devastated Europe.

Christopher Columbus has keen interest in bible and in Biblical prophecies and would quote biblical texts in his letters and logs.

Not all Columbus voyages were successful, half of them ended in disaster. In the first voyage in 1492 his ship ran aground and sank. On the fourth voyage his ship rotted and he had to spend a year with his men on Jamaica.