Little can be known about Christopher Columbus, other than the fact that “Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492”. Although he was said to have discovered the Americas, he was never the first to get there because (according to historians) the Vikings were there first. But his discovery led other people in Europe to learn about the Americas, thus changing the world. Columbus shaped the world as we know it today. Columbus was born around 1451 in the republic of Genoa (what would now be Italy). As a teenager he went on some commercial trips to the Mediterranean and Aegean to work and earn some money. When Columbus was young, travel had always fascinated him, so he decided to start sailing the seas, hoping to discover something new. His first voyage to the Atlantic Ocean in 1476 nearly killed him when a group of French privateers attacked Columbus and his crew off the coast of Portugal. So Columbus swam to Lisbon, where he settled and married Felipa Perestrello. Together the two had a son named Diego in the year 1480. Columbus' wife died soon after Columbus went to Spain and then he had a second son Fernando who was born out of wedlock in 1488 with Beatriz Enriquez de Arana. Columbus studied mathematics, astronomy, cartography and navigation in Lisbon, where Columbus would begin his quest to find a new world. During his mission to discover a new world, he first presented his plan to a Portuguese king for a three-ship voyage, which was rejected. He then took his project to Genoa and then to Venice but it was rejected there too. He then went to the Spanish monarchs Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon in 1486. ​​He proposed the idea of ​​why not sail west across the Atlantic in... middle of paper... safety, etc. both in America and Europe because it was something new and exciting. Columbus is important to history because he shaped the world as we know it. Works Cited1. "Christopher Columbus." History.com. A+E Television Networks, LLC, 2013. Web. December 13, 2013. .2. "Christopher Columbus." Primary Story: Famous People. BBC and Web. 13 December 2013. .3. "Christopher Columbus." 2013. The Biography Channel website. December 12, 2013. .4. First trip. when in time. Network. 18 March 2014. .5. Stapley, Mildred B. Christopher Columbus. 1st ed. New York, NY: The Macmillan Company, 1915. Print.