Before GPS and Google Maps, the man who changed the world of travel, without knowing it

Before all the technological advancements, like GPS, Google Maps, or even a compass, it’s difficult to imagine how people once found their way across vast, uncharted territories. In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed west with three ships, aiming to reach Asia by a shorter route. Miscalculating the Earth’s size and Asia’s extent, he landed in the Caribbean, believing he had reached the outskirts of Asia. Though he never grasped the true nature of his discovery, his voyage accidentally opened the Americas to European exploration, conquest, and the Columbian Exchange—forever altering global history.

Born between August 25 and October 31, 1451, in Genoa (part of modern Italy), Christopher Columbus entered maritime life at a young age, gaining experience on merchant ships. In 1476, he survived a shipwreck off the Portuguese coast near Cape Saint Vincent, swimming ashore and settling in Lisbon, where he studied mathematics, astronomy, cartography, and navigation while working as a mapmaker and sailor.

Between 1492 and 1504, Columbus led four voyages across the Atlantic under the sponsorship of the Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile, with funding arranged through the Spanish crown and private investors. His first voyage (1492–93) reached the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola , which he mistook for parts of Asia, initiating sustained European awareness of the Americas and paving the way for subsequent exploration, conquest, and colonisation.

The Columbian Exchange—the extensive movement of plants, animals, illnesses, civilisations, technology, and populations between the Old World (Europe, Africa, and Asia) and the New World (the Americas)—was sparked by these missions. While Old World introductions included wheat, sugarcane, horses, cattle, and pigs, American crops like maize, potatoes, tomatoes, and cassava increased global food supplies and populations. However, diseases like smallpox decimated Indigenous peoples, resulting in population declines of 50–95% in many regions by 1650. Columbus's expeditions significantly altered the world's ecosystems, economy, demographics, and history during a critical period in the Age of Discovery.

The first voyage and landfallOn 3 August 1492, Columbus set sail from Spain with three ships: the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. On 12 October he made landfall, not in Asia, as he intended, but in the Bahamas, likely on the island now called San Salvador. Over the following months he explored Caribbean islands, including Hispaniola.

During this voyage he kept a diary that records wildlife, weather and daily events — but also his disturbing impressions of local indigenous peoples, whom he described as “well-built … handsome features… they would make fine servants.”

Subsequent voyages and governanceColumbus made three more Atlantic crossings: in 1493, 1498 and 1502. On his second voyage he found the settlement on Hispaniola destroyed; he also sent around 500 enslaved indigenous people to Queen Isabella. By his third voyage the local Taino population on Hispaniola had been decimated: historians estimate that within 60 years perhaps only a few hundred remained. Columbus was arrested and returned to Spain in chains, and though later cleared of the most serious charges, he lost his titles and died in 1506.

Legacy: Discovery, exchange, exploitationColumbus did not “discover” the Americas in the sense of being the first person there — scholars note that the Viking explorer Leif Erikson had reached Newfoundland centuries earlier. Nonetheless, his 1492 voyage triggered an epochal shift: the so-called Columbian Exchange transferred people, crops, animals, diseases and cultures across hemispheres.For example, European wheat and sugar-cane travelled to the Americas; crops like potatoes and tomatoes travelled back to Europe.

At the same time, his actions, and those of subsequent colonisers, wrought devastation for indigenous societies: by introducing diseases, forced labour and slavery, the arrival of Europeans transformed the Americas in tragic ways.

In recent decades, Columbus’s legacy has become highly contested. On one hand he is remembered as a daring navigator whose voyages linked worlds and reshaped global history. On the other, he is criticised as the symbol of colonialism, exploitation and Indigenous suffering.

Monuments, holidays and school curricula increasingly reflect this tension: while some celebrate him as a pioneer, others emphasise the violent aftermath of his journeys. The fact that he mis-identified his discovery as Asia, and never recognised the true scale of the lands he reached, complicates his myth.

Why Columbus still matters

Why does Columbus continue to matter today, more than 500 years later? For one: his voyages represent a turning point in world history, the moment when Europe’s expansionist maritime powers reached the Americas and began a process of globalisation that persists today. His story is one of those that show how individual ambition, technological advances in navigation, political sponsorship and imperial motivations combined to produce large-scale change.

Secondly, Columbus’s legacy invites us to grapple with history’s dualities: achievement and atrocity, exploration and exploitation, connectivity and displacement. His work and life forces us to ask difficult questions: Who writes history? Whose stories are told? And how do we reconcile past triumphs with present ethics?

His voyages remind us that travel isn’t just crossing oceans; it’s crossing moral boundaries, discovering not only new lands but new responsibilities. His arrival did not mark the beginning of human presence in the Americas, but it did mark the onset of an era whose echoes remain today. Whether celebrated or condemned, Columbus remains a central figure in the story of our interconnected world. His journey compels us to look at discovery not just as conquest, but as reckoning.