How Did Columbus Change The World

In 1492 Christopher Columbus made a discovery that would change the world as they knew it; however, he did now know it at the time. What he discovered was the Western hemisphere. Columbus was a man from Genoa who wished to discover a direct sailing route from Europe to Asia, as everyone else who tried before only got as far as South Africa. He first asked Portugal to fund his voyage but they declined because they did not think he would make it all the way to Asia with the resources that he had without dying. So, he went to Madrid, and Spain bank rolled his four voyages. He sailed West through the Mediterranean where he came across what is now the Caribbean Islands, but that is not what he believed. Columbus thought that he had reached Asia, even naming it’s people “Indians”.
Later, Pedro Cabral, a Portuguese sailor attempting to reach India by sailing around the South of Africa, bumped into South America instead. He looked to find gold or silver there. They didn’t have any luck so they deforested the coast after finding out that the trees made red dye known as brazil, hence the name of the county now. The dye was not very profitable so they turned to sugar in Brazil, resulting in being the biggest sugar producer in the world at the time. Of course, they did not want to do the work themselves, which is why there were 4-5 million slaves doing work there over about 200 years. Many Portuguese men mated with slaves, and this is the reason that Brazil’s population today is so