Posted on 10/08/2017 3:20:10 PM PDT by artichokegrower
He was an explorer. How does every shortcoming of western civilization get laid at his feet? So if he hadn’t come here, Europeans would still think the world was flat and only Indians would inhabit North America?
The only good thing I can think of there is Taco Tuesday.....unless a camel comes through your office the next day.
“The Aztecs may have been as advanced as the ancient Romans,”
Not even close.
LOL only in football. SDSU 6-0
Yesterday C-SPAN re-ran a talk by William Least-Heat Moon about Columbus (originally aired in 2002, apparently). He is half-Indian (and rejects the term "Native American" as a label for Indians), probably best known for his book Blue Highways. It was interesting--went into detail about the four voyages and was pretty fair to Columbus (while not whitewashing some things he did which were inexcusable).
Columbus was one of the great explorers of history. His expeditions lead to a stream of European colonies in the Americas. One of the countries resulting was the United States of America, the greatest country in the history of the world.
The europeans had superior technology, weaponry, governmental systems, constructions and transportation techniques and on and on. The people here when the europeans came (I don’t say indigenous because they had migrated to be here) were of an inferior more backward culture and they lost out to the superior cultures.
I am of european descent on booths sides, and I am a proud american. I couldn’t be happier that Columbus came here and I say to the losers, tough dodo, that’s the way the world worked. If I see someone defacing Columbus statues, I will most likely go to jail.
Let’s start celebrating Leif Erikson Day then!
If they tore down statues of anyone who had offended someone else or been violent towards others, we wouldn’t have any statues standing. Is that an underlying reason for tearing down some of these statues, to erase the ide that people can do great things individually?
I posted this on another thread; fits here too:
Right off the UIC (Univ. of IL at Chicago) campus, in a little park located in what remains of the Little Italy neighborhood adjacent to the campus, is a beautiful statue of Columbus centered in a small circular fountain pool. I used to drive over there and park my car on the small dead end street leading up to the park to eat my lunch while looking at the lovely fountain.
There are still architecturally beautiful row homes lining the park on one side where wealthy Italians lived (or still live). On the other side of the park is the beginning of the south side ghettos, where black gangs hang out; however they never cross over the invisible line in the park where the Italians hold sway, as the neighborhood still has a considerable amount of Italian mafia members as residents, and the black gangs don’t want to mess with them for fear of big-time retaliation by these tough Italians in the hood. So it’s (pardon the expression) a Mexican standoff (or should I say Italian).
I fear for that wonderful Columbus statue’s existence, as the UIC campus and local community communist/pinko/fascist/Dem/leftist/socialist morons are right there next to the park, and will undoubtedly target it for attack.
I live in Florida now (thank goodness) but I retired from working at UIC some years back and still have a strong affinity for Chicago’s old ethnic neighborhoods with their churches and monuments and general architecture that make Chicago such a fascinating city in spite of its corrupt politician created troubles.
It’s sad what is happening to Chicago under Obama’s butt boy Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s destructive regime. And the police force there has been totally neutered by the City’s politics; their hands are tied. Watching the ruin of the historically rich City of Chicago by a bunch of socialist slimeballs and their ideology of destruction is most upsetting.
The Vikings were aware of the continent hundreds of years before; you can see the remains of their settlements in Labrador/Newfoundland. They couldn’t hold up against the natives, but they certainly knew there was land here.
IIRC, Columbus never set food on the American mainland (north or south).
Yes, the Vikings were here first, but for a lot of reasons, the history of the world did not change. It did with Columbus’s discovery. Columbus did visit England and may well have heard stories about land to the west. Columbus had calculated (incorrectly) the distance from Spain to “the Indies” based on Marco Polo’s estimate of the distance from Venice to China. He did touch the mainland of N & S America on his last two voyages. He never admitted that he wasn’t anywhere near China.
The destruction of great cities across the country is becoming the norm.
The main reason it didn’t change was because the Vikings never had a permanent settlement.
Good one!
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