Christopher Columbus

I should not proceed by land to the east, as is customary, but by a westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that any one has gone.

From an August 3, 1492 diary entry.

On this date in 1492, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus (his name in Italian was Cristoforo Colombo) landed on an island in the Bahamas, which the natives called Guanahani and which he named San Salvador.  No one knows exactly which of the 29 islands or 667 cays that make up the Bahamas was the one that Columbus first landed on.

Columbus made four voyages to the New World between 1492 and 1502.  He explored Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Dominica, Antigua, Nevis, St. Kitts, Trinidad, Tobago, Grenada, Martinique, and many other Caribbean islands, as well as parts of Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.