Christopher Columbus might not have been who we thought he was, as researchers begin to unravel the mystery behind his true identity.
As per the widely accepted tale that he was a famous explorer who had origins from Italy, new evidence proves more than just that about the humble man.
A new genetic tale has challenged all of this and is saying that he might be from a powerful and influential family elsewhere. For centuries, history books printed details about the explorer as a navigator of modest Italian origins.
Despite not being the first to make it to the Americas, he was the man credited with finding the New World after convincing the Catholic Monarchs to finance a voyage that altered the course of history.
On August 3 of 1492, he and his crew of nearly 100 people set sail from the port of Palos in southern Spain in three vessels. They were to find the route to China and India, and that was the mission of Columbus. But after 35 days at sea, there was growing frustration among crew members, forcing him to return. But the cry of land being spotted was heard at 2 am on October 12, and that's when the explorer arrived in the Americas.
This version of his origin has been questioned by historians in the past, and now geneticists are doing the same.
Findings from the latest study challenged the widely accepted account of him as a humble sailor from Genoa and suggest more about how he might have descended from a powerful Galician noble family in Spain.