In the month when the US, Venezuela and Colombia celebrate their national days - July 4, July 5 and July 20 respectively - the most logical candidate for the weekly Road Scholars column would seem to be Christopher Columbus.

The world-known navigator and adventurer was not only used for naming the Republic of Colombia but also to name Hristofor Kolumb Boulevard in Sofia's Druzhba district.

Columbus was born in 1452 in Genoa, Italy. He had little formal education but taught himself Portuguese, Spanish and Latin. He was trained in his father's trade of wool weaving, yet was interested in the sea and spent time as a youth around Genoa's busy port.

Since very early age, Columbus was determined to make a transatlantic voyage. He was convinced he could sail west and reach the Indies (which in Columbus' time included China, Japan, and India) in a few weeks. He sought support from England and Portugal, which refused to give him the necessary financing, but was finally successful in being sponsored by Spain.

For his voyage, Columbus received three ships fully equipped at the king and queen's expense, a large share in the trade, the governorship of any lands he might discover, the title of admiral, and noble rank. It is said that he asked a great deal for himself in order to save his heirs from being as poor as he was. Thus, all of his rewards were to be inherited by his children.

Little is known about Columbus's ships. The Santa Maria, the flagship, was the largest and was believed to weigh between 100 and 120 tons and to be 80-85 feet long. It probably carried about 40 of the three ships' total crew of 90 men. The Nina and the Pinta were about 65-70 feet long. The ships were lightly armed and carried the usual cargo for trading: cloth, knives, glass beads, and trinkets.

Columbus made a total of four voyages to the New World.

For the first voyage, the three ships left Palo on August 3, 1492. The first land they saw was in October of that year. Columbus named that island San Salvador. Days later, the expedition sailed to Cuba. In March 1493, Columbus landed back in Lisbon, then went to Palo and across Spain to Barcelona. He claimed to have reached islands just off the coast of Asia and brought with him artifacts, Indians, and some gold.

On September 25, 1493, Columbus started his second voyage. This time he had 17 ships and almost 1,500 men. First, they stopped in the Canary Islands, and then went to Lesser Antilles. Sailing through the Antilles, the expedition landed on and named the islands they saw on their way.

The explorers went past Puerto Rico and reached the site of Navidad in November. There Columbus set up a new colony, named Isabela, about 113km to the east of Navidad's site. He left in April 1494, explored the southern coast of Cuba but did not prove it an island, discovered and circumnavigated Jamaica, and returned to Isabela after 5 months. Columbus tried to govern the colony until he returned to Spain in 1496, but he was not a good administrator. He left his brother in charge with instructions to move the settlement to the south coast of Hispaniola. This was done in 1496, and this settlement, named Santo Domingo, became the first permanent European settlement in the New World.

When he went back, he was received at court in quite a reserved way because he had not found the rich Asian mainland, and his effort to get gold from the Indians on Hispaniola had been only moderately successful.

However, Columbus was finally authorised to make a third voyage after the Portuguese had sent Vasco da Gama off to India in 1497. Despite difficulties in recruiting a crew, Columbus departed Spain in May 1498 with six ships and reached Trinidad on July 31, 1498. The next day he reached the mainland and thus discovered South America. Having found pearls at islands near the coast, the expedition then sailed across the Caribbean to Santo Domingo. The colonists there were in revolt, and Columbus soon had to face a royal commissioner, Francisco de Bobadilla, who arrived from Spain in 1500 with full powers.

Columbus set off on his fourth expedition in May 1502, made a landfall at Martinique, and sailed to Santo Domingo. There he was denied permission to land, and his warnings about a hurricane were ignored. His ships weathered the storm, sailed west and reached Honduras in Central America. Having missed the sites of the Maya, he sailed along the coast past Panama, finally heading again for Santo Domingo. His vessels, rotted by shipworm, were abandoned in Jamaica, where Columbus was marooned for a year. Finally, he was rescued and he reached Spain in November 1504.

Christopher Columbus died in Valladolid on May 20, 1506, while pressing his claims at court. He still believed that he had reached Asia. He no longer had royal support, and the crown had, from 1495 onward, violated its original agreement with Columbus by authorising others to sail to the Indies.

It is known that other explorers, such as the Vikings, sailed to the Americas long before Columbus. But only after Columbus' voyages did significant numbers of Europeans settle in the New World.