Christopher Columbus, the Italian adventurer and navigator who found the "New World" for Spain and launched European colonialism, was born in the Republic of Genoa on or around this day in 1451.
On a voyage funded by King Ferdinand of Spain, Italian adventurer Christopher Columbus found the 'New World' of the Americas in 1492. Columbus was born in 1451 in the Republic of Genoa, which is today part of Italy. In his twenties, he relocated to Lisbon, Portugal, and then to Spain, where he resided for the rest of his life. He made four journeys to the Caribbean and South America between 1492 and 1504, and has been both lauded and blamed for opening up the Americas to European colonization.
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