Most of us have heard the story of how Christopher Columbus “sailed the ocean blue” in 1492. How much do you know of Christopher Columbus beyond him landing in the New World on October 12, two months after he set sail from Spain? For the history buffs out there, here are 5 facts you might not know about Christopher Columbus.

His real name was Cristoforo Columbo.
Christopher Columbus is an Anglicized version of his Italian birth name Cristoforo Columbo. Columbus was likely not the first European to land in the New World.
Norse Viking Leif Eriksson is believed to have landed in Newfoundland around 1000, nearly 500 years before Columbus set sail. The Santa Maria wrecked on Columbus’ historic voyage.
On Christmas Eve, a cabin boy ran Columbus’s flagship into a coral reef on the northern coast of Hispaniola or near present-day Cap Haitien, Haiti. Columbus made four voyages to the New World.
Along with his first voyage in 1492, Columbus made three other voyages across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Islands, South America and Central America in 1493, 1498 and 1502. He never landed in North America. Columbus’s mission was not to prove that the earth was round.
According to History.com most educated people already knew at the time of Columbus that the earth was not flat. The purpose of Columbus’s trip was to find a water route to the eastern shore of Asia from Europe.