Christopher Columbus – Member of Byzantine Dynasty?
Columbus Day has evolved into a day of pride for Italian-Americans, but there is a school of thought that claims Columbus was not born in Genoa, but on the island of Chios, which was a Genoese possession at the time through a treaty with the Byzantine Empire and by tribute to the Ottoman Turks.
There is anecdotal evidence to support the claim, but there is also a more fanciful story that Christopher Columbus was the nephew of a Byzantine admiral of the Paleologus dynasty, who left Chios after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and became a privateer.
Son of a wool weaver? Or descendant of the last Emperors of Byzantium? Either way, it makes a good story.
