Everyone knows the saying Columbus sailed the blue ocean in 1492. However, Christopher Columbus is much more than what everyone learned from grade school to high school. Columbus is believed to be a hero, but simply being classified as a hero is wrong. Several works, including Christopher Columbus and the East India Company and The Lies My Teacher Told Me, have been published about the real Christopher Columbus and his legacy. The story of Christopher Columbus begins in the city of Genoa in 1451. Columbus was the oldest of five children. He went to high school but left school at a young age and began sailing on Genoese ships in the Mediterranean. The navigation experience that Columbus gained while sailing in the Mediterranean was the basis of his navigational knowledge. Between 1476 and 1785, Columbus lived in Portugal. In Portugal, Christopher Columbus expanded his knowledge of sailing and navigation. The time Columbus spent in Portugal aided him in his later voyages across the Atlantic. Christopher Columbus had two main reasons for trying to find a around-the-world sea route to Asia. Columbus' first reason was that he wanted glory. He believed that the Earth was round and according to his theory, the Earth only had a circumference of 18,000 miles (Symcox, 9). He thought it would be faster to sail around the world to Asia than to sail around Africa. He wanted to be the first person recognized to have traveled around the earth to Asia. Columbus also wanted to make a name for his family. The second reason why Columbus wanted to sail around the world was simple. He wanted to make money. Columbus's desire for fame and fortune led him to create a sea route to Asia. Columbus had ties to the Native Americans who lived there when Columbus arrived in 1492. The Norse also established a colony in Greenland for 500 years (Loewen, 8). There, the Norse explored parts of North America (Loewen, 8). This evidence proves that Columbus was not the first to discover the Americas. Columbus began the disappearance of current Indian cultures in the region. Although Christopher Columbus and the East India Company neither agree nor disagree with The Lies My Teacher Told Me, primary sources and the history of Columbus reinforce the idea that Columbus is not a perfect hero as embraced in history textbooks. Works Cited Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. Print. Symcox, Geoffrey and Blair Sullivan. Christopher Columbus and the Indian Enterprise. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005. Print.