High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In the early modern period, the voyages of Columbus initiated European exploration and colonization of the American continents, and are thus of great significance in world history. Christopher Columbus was a navigator and an admiral for Castile, a country that later founded modern Spain. He made four voyages to the Americas, with his first in 1492, which resulted in what is considered by European Americans as the Discovery of America or Discovery of the Americas.