Today is Columbus Day, when we celebrate the first European explorers to discover the Americas, which they weren’t, when Christopher Columbus landed on our continent, which he didn’t.
Still, Columbus thought October 12, 1492, was worth celebrating. After all, he’d badly miscalculated the size of the word, figuring he’d have to sail about 2,300 miles to reach the East Indies. It was actually 12,200 miles from the Canary Islands to Japan. I’m not sure anyone even consulted the Japanese on the idea, let along the Canaries.
Luckily for Columbus’ dwindling food supply, he bumped into a continent that nobody even knew was there. He spent his whole time there assuming he was in Asia after being the first to sight land—which he didn’t. A guy named Rodrigo de Triana was the first to actually see some little palm tree in the Bahamas.
After one of his ships ran aground he established the first Age of Discovery colony in the New World, but the men he left behind argued over gold and internet usage, and the town failed. Meanwhile Columbus headed back with some kidnapped locals, and introduced Europe to tobacco.
If you think about it, he was kind of a lousy explorer. If he'd made it to the Pacific, he'd have ended up stranded on Gilligan's Island.
I mean, Cuba looks nothing like China. Come on.
But at least that got Columbus the job of Governor of the Indies, where he gained the nickname “The Tyrant of the Caribbean”, soon to be a major motion picture from Disney.
All of this led to the Aztecs and Incas being wiped out, pandemics in both the Americas, yadayada, Pilgrims, American Revolution, treaties broken, Trail of Tears, casinos.
I’m summarizing a bit.
Now, my wife is not a fan of Christopher Columbus. I suspect she thinks Columbus’ direct descendent was Andrew Jackson—see above about the Trail of Tears. Emily’s a descendent of the Aniyvwiyaʔi, which is what we’d call the Cherokee Indians if we weren’t too lazy to spell it.
My Cherokee ancestors lived up in the Appalachian Mountains and got something of a pass, pardon the pun, from forced relocation. Emily’s ancestors walked hundreds of miles, and those who survived ended up in snowstorm earthquake territory, instead of the much more pleasant southeastern hurricane zone they’d enjoyed before.
All because of Christopher Columbus.
You can see why some areas now celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day on this day, which is actually that day, because getting a Monday off is way more important than marking an actual date. Personally I’m in favor of renaming it Explorer’s Day, or Discoverer’s Day, or some such. Columbus did make important voyages, after all, even if he was a dick; and it would be a way to learn about all the explorers from all over. Remembering the past, instead of hiding it.
We are a race of explorers, after all, and as a people we tend to crave discovery. To the bottom of the ocean to the ends of space, we need to keep exploring.
For the sake of little green men, hopefully in the future we’ll be nicer about it.
Yes, in recent years the whole Columbus glory is getting more and more cracks. Not only is it now proven that he wasn't the first European who came to America (or whatever it was called before he got there), that was in fact the Vikings around 900 AD. Or rogue elements of the Vikings, to be precise.
But even worse, there are strong indications that the Vikings were not the first foreigners - illegal aliens as they are called today - who came to the coasts of the Americas. Some findings lead to the conclusion, that Polynesians reached the coast of todays Chile. Propably after the Viking era, but way before Columbus. There are also hints that the Chinese made it to the west coast of the US. Not to open laundries or build rail roads, but much earlier, perhaps even before the Vikings found that its to warm in Maine and went home.
But a recent discovery in Brasil (not official yet I think) would top all of that. People claim to have found early Egyptian hieroglyphs there. That would mean, that the Egyptians got there already in the era of the old riches, may be more than 4000 years ago.
And then there are of course the asian Siberians, who came to America first, may be around 15000 years ago. May be they should have build a wall straight away, but of course there was no Mexico to pay for it then. So that ended pretty badly for them later, as we all know.
So it seems, its almost easier to ask who didn't find the Americas. Well, may be the Romans - they would have written a memo to someone then. And the old Germanians propably - its just to long of a journey to go without decent bread, beer and sausages with Sauerkraut. But most others seemed to have been there already. A little bit like Las Vegas or NYC, or Mallorca today...
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I guess the Roman navy couldn't quite keep up with the Roman army.
It just goes to show, it's in the nature of humanity to explore and discovery. That may be why as a species we're in so much of a funk these days--with worldwide instant communications, there's no place to discover whether there's someone else already there or not. Better start planning those colonies on Mars and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
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Actually, the Romans were quiet good in sailing and their ships were state of the art at the time. They had a navy, but a even much bigger fleet of trading ships owned by private people. They travelled all over the mediterranean sea and even as far as Ireland and England to do business. Only their method of navigation limted them somewhat. Mostly they stayed in viewing distance of a the coast line, and they stopped on the coast - preferably a harbor - for the night. Crossing open sea areas was usually done on certain fixed routes that they knew from experience.
May be some tried to head out west into the atlantic, but after finding nothing after a few days they turned back.
Its a fundamental problem for all explorers: a discovery is only of value, if you are able to return home and tell about it. May be a whole number of people, Egyptians, Romans and who ever, made it over the Atlantic, more or less intentional. But they never made it back again. Perhaps thats the reason for the egyptian artefacts in Brasil, too.
Well, today the excitement is somewhat lost in the whole exploring thing. Even different planets like Mars, we know already what it looks like there, before anybody ever set foot on it. That makes it much less adventurous, although its still dangerous to go there. But thats more because of technical problems, rather than facing the unexpected.
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Sure they were, but admitting that would ruin the joke!
I do wonder about how many explorers unintentionally made it to other places. And as you suggested, that's one of the things modern exploring doesn't have--people stumbling across new places, instead of studying their destinations first. Not to mention you can't just pack up and go to the bottom of the ocean or the surface of Mars.
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