… it will continue to be worth pointing out that everyone hated Columbus. The men who worked for him wanted his head on a pike; his peers loathed him, his sponsors lost their trust in him, and his political superiors eventually arrested him and his two idiot brothers for being incompetent brutes. And that’s not even considering his reputation among the locals.
Do read it all.
I was just there enjoying reading it.
Christopher “Wrong Way” Columbus. The worst lucky, or lucky worst sailor in history.
And he wasn’t even the first one here!
The Vikings were here first.
The Chinese might have been here before, or after, the Vikings – really! Maybe…
And before the Vikings were here first, so might the Phoenicians have been here first.
And even before them, so might the Egyptians have been here even firster.
Could this continent possibly be what the legend of Atlantis was based on?
But we do know with certainty that the Vikings were here centuries before Christopher “Wrong Way†Columbus.
The saddest thing is that his arrival here eventually wiped out entire countries, cultures, and societies, and millions and millions of people.
The Chinese discovered Mexico. The Vikings discovered Newfoundland. The Welsh discovered the stuff in between.
Also, I dimly remember reading that the first European to land in Brazil had been trying to get to Africa.
I did think it was interesting that when there was the drive-up to the 500th anniversary in 1992 that when the truth got out, nobody ended up celebrating at all. They called off celebrations. Not for some stupid PC reason (or what the right claims as PC), but truth showed this guy to be a truly awful human being, even by the standards of his time.
CAn I just add that among famous white guys, his basis for fame was that he was really, really, really f*cking lucky?
Because he didn’t prove the earth was round. Everyone educated in the West knew that the earth was round — Archimedes even calculated exactly how round, by comparing the angle of the sun at noon at Alexandria vs. the head of the nile — it’s just that they knew that meant that there had to be a simply ginormous ocean inbetween western Europe and the coast of Asia. So ginormous that no-body wanted to even try crossing it.
Except Coumbus, who conned some selfish royals into giving him three ships.
And then he got lucky. He didn’t have to cross the whole thing at all. Turned out there were two continents and some islands in the way.
Whoever would have guessed?
Maha, the evidence that the Chinese (Zhenghe) discovered Mexico is very weak. It’s not impossible, but it’s far from firmly established. There’s a useful and informed discussion about that here:
http://msgboard.snopes.com/message/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/36/t/000784/p/1.html
There is no doubt that the Vikings landed on Newfoundland about 500 years before Columbus. But the impact of that discovery was minor – the Vikings abandoned their colony, and it was forgotten. The lasting effect on world history was virtually nil.
Columbus, on the other hand, had a huge impact. His discovery led to a mad rush by Europeans to colonize the Americas, for better or worse. Columbus himself actually had no idea what it was he discovered – he thought he found a new route to what is now Indonesia. Instead, it was a route between Europe and North America. But Columbus’s navigation error doesn’t diminish the fact that it was a big discovery, and impacted world history in a very significant way.
Was Columbus a real pr*ck? The best historical accounts we can find say yes, indeed he and his crew raped, enslaved and murdered the Taino Indians with impunity. Don’t count me as a Columbus apologist. On the other hand, I don’t think we should rewrite or reinterpret history to reduce the importance of his discovery. After Columbus, the world was never the same. That cannot be said for Leif Ericson, or Zhenghe (if Zhenghe indeed reached Mexico).
Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport. The evidence that Madoc of Gwynedd (north Wales) landed on North America in 1170 is very weak, also, but I once met a Cherokee who believed it, so what the hey. Awhile back some Olmec artifacts were discovered inscribed with what appears to be Shang writing (scroll down), so I don’t think the Zhenghe claim should be dismissed out of hand.
Doesn’t reading this information make you wonder about much of the educational material we were presented with? (And still are) I remember reading Dos Passos’ USA trilogy about Henry Ford. It made me question the shallowness of our usual knowledge of historical figures. Watching the events of the last 15 years, I can pretty easily imagine how figures like Dumbya and Obama will be presented in “history” textbooks. It ain’t pretty.
Just for the record. The American Indians never even considered this country as lost and needing discovery by a bunch of strangers.
Next we’ll here that Europeans didn’t invent pasta, fireworks and the printing press. Oh, wait …
There’s kind of a rule that it doesn’t count until some White Man has done it, isn’t there?
Right-o, Bonnie!
I can only imagine a bunch of guidos pulling into my driveway and claiming they discovered something for the queen of Spain.
I’d have to sick Butch the attack cat on their asses……
And turn the hose on them.
And don’t get me started about those Pilgrim nut-jobs!
I’ll admit that Columbus wasn’t all that admirable a character, but he did unite two worlds. Others may have made the journey, but Columbus brought the Americas and the other continents into permanent contact. Others may have sold silk to the westerners before, but Zhang Qian established the Silk Road during the Han dynsasty.
Pingback: The Mahablog » Stossel: Stupid on Steroids