Christopher Colombus was a famous Italian explorer. When he was a little boy, he used to listen to sailors' stories about different places around the world. When Colombus himself became a sailor, he studied sailors' maps. While he was studying these maps, he began to think that he could find a quicker route to India by sailing west. So, he asked the King and Queen of Spain to give him some money and ships. At first they didn't help him because Spain was in the middle of a war. Later, however, they gave him three ships and Colombus started his journey across the Atlantic Ocean on 3 August 1492. On 12 October, he reached a small island in the Bahamas. He continued sailing west and he reached the island of Cuba before he returned to Spain. He thougth he was in India, that's why he called these islands the West Indies. He travelled to America two more times, but he never actually reached India.