Why set sail?
He never even knew he had done it, but Christopher Columbus, for better or worse, changed the world. We're not even sure where he came from: some say he was Corsican, others that was a converted Jew, still others that he had Viking blood. Most historians agree that he was a good Italian lad from Genoa. Wherever he came from, one thing was certain, Columbus knew where he wanted to go. So he somehow managed to convince Queen Isabel and King Fernando of Spain to finance a pretty outrageous scheme. He would sail west until he reached India, thereby opening up a lucrative new trade route with that mysterious land. In return, he would be knighted, appointed Admiral of the Ocean Sea, made the viceroy of any new lands, and awarded ten percent of the wealth this new route generated. Oh, and if he could find any gold and convert a few natives to Christianity along the way, so much the better.

The maiden voyage
Crossing the Atlantic Ocean under wind power in a wooden ship about the length of a tennis court with only 24 men by your side would be pretty darn scary even today. For the sailors aboard the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, it must have been a truly daunting undertaking. What mysterious sea creatures would they encounter? Would provisions last long enough to get all the way round to India? Would the wind die out completely, leaving them stranded on the open ocean? Would they ever see Spain again? Or would they just reach the edge of the earth and fall off into nothingness? The possibilities for tragedy were endless. So it was by sheer luck (or through God's will) that these three vessels met with nothing but clear blue skies and strong steady winds for the entire 37-day journey.

Brave new world
As we all know, Columbus and his crew never made it to India. In fact, they first shored up in the Bahamas, though no one's quite sure which island was their first port of call. They then left 39 sailors behind in present-day Haiti to establish a new colony before sailing back to Spain. (All the settlers were killed by natives during their first year there.) Though Columbus made several further voyages across the Atlantic, he never even saw North America. And instead of claiming respect and honour for discovering The New World, Columbus held fast to his belief that he had found a Western route to Asia, even though America bore absolutely no resemblance to the land Marco Polo had visited. Even the name America wasn't given to the continent until after Columbus's death.

Columbus in his own words
"The trees are as different from those of our country as day is from night, and the same may be said of the fruit, the weeds, the stones and everything else."

"I saw a snake, which we killed, and I have kept the skin for your Highnesses."

"It appears to me that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion."

"They came loaded with balls of cotton, parrots, javelins, and other things too numerous to mention. These they exchanged for whatever we chose to give them. I was very attentive to them, and strove to learn if they had any gold."

"I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men and govern them as I pleased."