必修3 Unit1 背景材料Christopher Columbus.docVIP

1 Christopher Columbus father was a businessman, a weaver. His mothers family were also weavers. Maybe they hoped that one day Christopher would go into the weaving business too, but Christopher had ideas of his own. Growing up in the seaport city of Genoa, Italy, he had watched ships coming and going all the time, and he began to dream of sailing out on a great adventure of his own. 2 Lots of people dream of adventures when they are children, but Christopher didnt just dream, he did something about it. He worked hard to get what he wanted. One thing that he did early in his life was to get a good education. He didnt go to school for long, but he continued his education on his own to be sure that he learned the things that he would need to know. He taught himself Latin and Spanish, so that he could communicate with people from different places. When he was 14 years old, he signed on as a deckhand on sailing ships to learn all about sailing. 3 At that time, many ships were sailing off on adventures. Some of them sailed east, around Africa to reach what they called the Indies, which includes the modern countries of India, China, and Japan. Columbus, knowing that the world was round, thought that he could get there by sailing west. He didnt know that there were whole continents, North and South America, and then the Pacific Ocean in his way! 4 The voyage west would be an expensive one, and Columbus first job was to find someone rich to sponsor him. After many tries, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain took an interest in his plan. Columbus had asked for a lot, and maybe he was surprised when they agreed to everything he asked for; three ships, honors and titles, and a percent of the profit from the trade. 5 His three ships were named the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina. The Santa Maria was the largest; it was a heavy cargo ship with three masts, two square sails, one triangular sail, and another little topsail. The Pinta was smaller and faster, the kind of