From The (London, U.K.) Independent:
Was Colombus really a Catalan pirate? DNA test will decide
By Elizabeth Nash in Madrid
Published: 13 January 2006
Spanish scientists are to test the DNA of hundreds of Catalans with the surname Colom to prove that Christopher Columbus, far from the Italian gentleman he has long been believed to be, was in fact a pirate born in Catalonia.
The experiment, in determining whether any of the participants are related to the explorer, is designed to clarify the disputed origins of the man who made landfall in America in 1492. While historians have mostly reckoned he was born in Genoa in 1451, a counter-lobby argues that he was the Catalan Cristofol Colom, who airbrushed his past to conceal activities as a pirate and conspirator against the king.
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