Parkash kaur biography of christopher columbus

A man of convictions, Christopher Columbus used his strong personality to persuade rulers and scholars to overlook the accepted theories about the size of the Earth to search out a new route to Asia.

Christopher Columbus was an Italian navigator and adventurer who was born in the Republic of Genoa between August 25 and October 31, He made four.

Although he wasn't the first European to find the American continent that distinction goes to Viking Leif Ericson , his journeys opened up the trade of goods and ideas between the two lands. He was the oldest of five, and worked closely with his brothers in adulthood. Located on the northwest coast of Italy, Genoa was a seaport city.

Columbus completed his formal education at an early age and began sailing on trading trips. In , he traveled to Portugal, where he set up a mapmaking business with his brother, Bartholomew. In , he married Felipa Perestrello Moniz, the daughter of the governor of a Portguese island. Their only child, Diego, was born in Felipa died a few years later.

His second son, Fernando, was born in to Beatriz Enriquez de Arana. In the s, the Turkish Empire controlled northern Africa, blocking Europe's easiest access to the valuable goods of the Orient, such as spices. In a search for an alternative to the dangerous and time-consuming land route, many countries turned their eyes to the sea.

Portugal in particular made great strides in finding a route around the southern tip of Africa, eventually rounding the Cape of Good Hope in Rather than circling the southern-stretching continent, Columbus began a campaign to reach Asia by traveling west. Educated people knew that the world was round; the looming question was, just how large was the planet?

The Greek mathematician and astronomer Eratosthenes first calculated its size around BCE, and subsequent scholars had refined the number, but it had never been proven. Columbus argued that the numbers most scholars agreed on were too large, and that the vast land mass of Asia would further shrink the amount of sea travel necessary.