This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,

the show where America is the star and the American people.

Coming to you from the city where the west begins, Fort Worth, Texas.

So much has been said about Christopher Columbus, but what was his primary motivation for his

subsequent discovery of America? Here to tell the story is George Grant, author of The Last Crusader,

The Untold Story of Christopher Columbus.

You might well know that in 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, but I'd warrant that you don't know and never knew why it was, what it was, that he set out to do.

The truth is, is that the story of Christopher Columbus has become muddled through

the years, partly because of politics, partly because of distance from time. William DeBertan,

the 19th century essayist, declared, it ought to be the greatest part of our object and business in life to unlearn what we have

been taught amiss, and only then to acquire the knowledge of better things.

Back in 1992, when the 500th anniversary of Columbus was about to be celebrated,

I decided to unlearn what I had been taught amiss about Christopher Columbus, and what I discovered really astonished me.

I thought I knew the story, but I didn't at all.

For instance, I thought that Christopher Columbus sailed for Spain.

But in fact, there was no such nation, no such kingdom, no such territory

as Spain in 1492. We've been taught amiss. I was taught amiss. It's also often asserted

that the greatest obstacle Columbus faced in receiving a royal

warrant for his expedition across the Atlantic was the prevailing view that the earth was flat.

But in fact, most seasoned navigators knew full well that the earth was spherical.

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