NewswireToday - /newswire/ - Madalena - Pico, Azores, Portugal, 10/26/2009 - Controversial Christopher Columbus is about to get even more controversial. New findings incriminate Columbus as a crafty spy for the crown of Portugal, according to the author of COLUMBUS: The Untold Story, to be released November 24, in Seville.

The history of Columbus has been a point of contention between academics for hundreds of years. Those disagreements involve the navigator’s true identity, his place of birth and his true motive for heading west across the Atlantic in search of India.

Columbus academics know, that in 1488, Columbus was allowed by the King of Portugal to witness a vital Portuguese secret: a detailed map of the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope. Therefore the question arises as to why Columbus didn't take that shorter route around Africa in 1492. This is only one of the many questions that Columbus scholar and author, Manuel Rosa, has focused on answering during his 18-year-long investigation and one of the many points he presents in support of the Portuguese spy theory.

The long touted view that Columbus believed he had reached India by miscalculations and mistaking the world for much smaller is challenged by private notes that Columbus left behind. In 1494 Columbus made a personal note that Haiti was located only 5 Time Zones West of Portugal while India, since the year 150 AD, was known to be located 8 Time Zones to the East of Portugal—a location directly opposite on the sphere from where Columbus places himself in 1494. This is only one of the many facts used by the author to contest the official history.

Having already published two books in Portuguese, Mr. Rosa is seen as a leading expert on the subject of Columbus's relations with the Portuguese crown. He is the only investigator to present new Portuguese documentation related to Columbus in 500 years. The new Spanish book will be presented in Seville, Spain, with the assistance of Spain’s leading expert on Columbus, Professor Consuelo Varela of the High Council of Scientific Research, at the School of Hispano-American Studies where Mrs. Varela is the Assistant Director.

Mr. Rosa's publications are causing a lot of disconcert in the academia of some countries and are forcing us to reconsider everything we had accepted up to now as the truth. Among the supporters of Mr. Rosa’s assertions is Professor Joaquim Veríssimo Serrão -Ex-President of the University of Lisbon and President of the Portuguese Academy of History from 1975 to 2006- who, in the Preface of the book, recognizes that the author “has made a meticulous study of the life and deeds of Columbus.”

Agency / Source: Association Cristovao Colon

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