Why can christopher columbus be considered a great explorer?
Chocolahoma has a good point, about Columbus’ (first) expedition equating to a trip to the moon nowadays. After all, in his day, lots of people thought that the earth was flat, so, as far as they were concerned, he was sailing to certain death (when he fell off the edge of the world). Setting off like that, into the Valley of Death, was pretty brave, or great, if you like. Ordinary sailors tended to get edgy if they sailed out of sight of land, and their captain had to find ways of keeping them in check until they sighted land again. Columbus ran a real risk of being hanged from the yardarm by his own crew, which means that, even if he didn’t fall off the edge of the world, he might have ended up as fish food at the hands of his men. All in all, I think that, after overcoming all those obstacles to actually casting off and sailing away, Columbus was brave to face up to the dangers that were waiting for him out at sea, and that equals great.
