Christopher Columbus lived in an age of Moslem expansion in the east. With the fall of Constantinople in 1453, direct land routes to the Indies were closed to European merchants and traders, thus creating the need to find a sea route to the Indies. Portugal had spent years sailing the coast of Africa to reach the Indies, but Columbus thought he had a better way: sailing west. With the defeat of the Moors in 1492 Queen sabella …showed first 75 words of 2703 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2703 total…in his own mind, that sailing west to the Indies was possible, and died believing he had proven his theory correct. Without a doubt Columbus' Enterprise of the Indies, as he called it, changed the course of global history. Without him, discoveries in the New World would have been delayed at least eight years. He and the men that followed discovered a 'new world' for the Europeans and set into motion the 'Age of Discovery'.