Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, and colonizer, born in the Republic of Genoa, in what is today northwestern Italy.
Some historians argue that Columbus was not from Genoa, but instead, from Catalonia, Portugal, or Spain.
He allegedly made a trip to Chios (modern Greece), a Genoese colony in the Aegean Sea.
In May 1476, he took part in a convoy sent to carry a valuable cargo to northern Europe. He docked in Bristol, England and Galway, Ireland. In 1477, he was possibly in Iceland. In 1479, Columbus visited his brother in Lisbon, Portugal.