Columbus was born Cristóbal Colón (Sp) or Cristoforo Colombo (It), in the Italian port city of Genoa, the son of Domenico Colombo, a weaver, and Suzanna Fontanarossa. There is no real evidence that he was Italian, and it is thought that his family might have been Spanish Jews; his writings are in Spanish, including his private notes. Little is recorded of his early life, but it seems that he went to sea at the age of 14, as a pirate, later visiting the Greek Island of Chios. In 1476, while fighting against Genoa with the Portuguese off Cape St Vincent, the ship he was aboard caught fire, and he swam to the shore of Portugal with the help of a wooden oar. Lisbon was then a busy commercial centre, at the westernmost edge of the known world, and congregated there were seafarers, astronomers, geographers, and scientists, all keenly debating the possibility of the existence and discovery of a "new world', or of reaching the East by sailing west.

Soon after coming ashore, he sailed......

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Title: Christopher Columbus
Approximate Word Count: 851
Approximate Pages: 4 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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