Researchers have uncovered the origins of Christopher Columbus.

According to the results of a new study by scientists, it turned out that the legendary traveler Christopher Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe by nationality.

Spanish researchers conducted a DNA analysis of Christopher Columbus. There has been intense debate among historians and scholars regarding the origins of Columbus. There were versions that he was from Genoa, Greece, Basques, Portugal or Britain. However, in fact, Christopher Columbus was a Spaniard of Jewish origin.

The study to determine the origins of the great traveler lasted 22 years under the leadership of forensic expert Miguel Lorente. Scientific evidence was compared with DNA from known relatives and descendants of Columbus. This allowed us to draw our own conclusions in a documentary film called “Columbus DNA: A True Hike.” According to study leader Miguel Lorente, scientists had DNA from Columbus himself, but only partial, and this was enough to conduct the study. In addition, scientists had DNA from the son of the great explorer Hernando Colon.

Lorente noted that both Hernando's Y chromosome (male) and mitochondrial DNA (passed on by his mother) were consistent with Jewish ancestry.

Based on an analysis of 25 possible birthplaces of Christopher Columbus, Lorente indicated that the traveler could only have been born in one of the countries of Western Europe.

Sephardic Jews are the descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews who lived on the Iberian Peninsula before the Reconquista, that is, the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal in the 90s of the 15th century. Christopher Columbus officially discovered America on October 12, 1492, when his expedition first reached the shores of the New World. He later led several more expeditions that marked the beginning of the colonization of America. Columbus died in 1506 in Valladolid, Spain, but willed to be buried on the island of Hispaniola, which is today shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti. His remains were transported there in 1542, and in 1795 to Cuba. Finally, in 1898, the remains were returned to Spain, to Seville.