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Christopher Columbus

Columbus and The Great Discovery
Columbus was very young when he became interested in travel, sailing and astronomy. He began sailing at the age of fourteen and from then on sailing and meeting different people gave him a lot of knowledge. Columbus had very little education, he had to learn how to read and write when he was much older and he learned about sailing and astronomy through people, not school. The knowledge that he developed led him to believe that he can find a different rout to Asia. Columbus began proposing his idea of sailing westward and landing in India. This was a radical idea for this time period, due to the majority of people believing that the Earth was flat and not round. However, there were plenty of educated people that understood that the Earth was round, although some didn’t agree with Columbus’ estimate of Earth’s size. For this reason Columbus had a hard time convincing England, France and Portugal to help him finance his voyage.
Christopher Columbus’ first attempt to try and sail west to find a passage to India was in 1483 (Calgary.com). Columbus proposed his plan to King John II of Portugal but he was rejected because King John II received advice from other mapmakers and explorers, who said that the idea was not possible. Then Columbus went to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain who didn’t reject him, they just didn’t approve.
More time passed before Columbus finally was able to convince King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain after failing two times before that. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were coming off a huge win at Granada, where the Spanish took control of the last Muslim city. Spain was finally united and under Christian rule. This motivated the king and queen to try and compete with the French and other European nations for supremacy in Europe. The King and Queen decided that to find a new route to Asia is the best way to get them ahead. Most people didn’t expect Columbus to return with...