Christopher Columbus (bt. August and October 1451 – May 20, 1506) was an Italian navigator, colonizer, and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the Western Hemisphere and of the American continents within. Though not the first to reach the Americas from Afro-Eurasia — preceded some five-hundred years by Leif Ericson, and perhaps others — Columbus initiated widespread contact between Europeans and indigenous Americans. With his several hapless attempts at establishing a settlement on the island of Hispaniola, he personally initiated the process of Spanish colonization which foreshadowed general European colonization of the "New World". The term Pre-Columbian is sometimes used to refer to the people and cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and his European successors.