CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

Was a navigator, colonizer, and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in theWestern Hemisphere. With his four voyages of exploration and several attempts at establishing a settlement on the island of H ispaniola, all funded by Isabella I of Castile, he initiated the process of Spanish colonization which foreshadowed general E uropena colonization of the New World

Although not the first to reach the Americas from Europe—he was preceded by at least one other group, the Norse, led by Leif Ericson, who built a temporary settlement 500 years earlier at L'Anse aux Meadows— Columbus initiated widespread contact between Europeans and indignous Americans.