In 1486, Columbus went to the Spanish monarchy of Queen Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. Their focus was on a war with the Muslims, and their nautical experts were skeptical, so ...

Through it all, Columbus did not deviate from his westerly course. At 10 p.m. on October 11, vesper prayers still fresh on his mind, Columbus spied a light bobbing in the distance.

For a decade, from 1492 until his last ship, barely afloat, sailed back to Spain in 1503 at the end of his final, superhumanly difficult fourth voyage, Columbus believed that the New World was, in ...