Christopher traveled to Greece and Portugal, and he became a sailor in his early teens. In 1476, he was a crewman on a ship that was attacked by French pirates. He was very lucky and found a piece of what was left of the ship. Fortunately, Christopher was able to swim the six miles to shore. He then traveled to Lisbon, Portugal where his brother, Bartholomew, owned a book and map store. He read many of the books and studied the maps until he had taught himself all he could learn about navigation and mapmaking.Starting in 1484, Christopher tried to convince King John of Portugal to pay for supplies, ships, and a crew to make the voyage to Marco Polo’s amazing gold mine. King John refused to pay for my voyage saying that he would fail. At least King John knew the world isn’t flat like so many others. He just thought the world is much larger than Christopher does.
P/S:King John was correct, Christopher Columbus thought the world was much smaller than it really was.
He then decided to ask King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to pay for his voyage instead. It took Christopher a couple of tries, but they agreed to supply him with the things he needed. Let the Portuguese sail all the way around Africa and across the Indian Ocean. That is the long way to go! The Portuguese king will regret not paying for his voyage.