In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
He had three ships and left from Spain; He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain.
He sailed by night; he sailed by day; He used the stars to find his way.
A compass also helped him know How to find the way to go.
Ninety sailors were on board; Some men worked while others snored.
Then the workers went to sleep; And others watched the ocean deep.
Day after day they looked for land; They dreamed of trees and rocks and sand.
October 12 their dream came true, You never saw a happier crew!
“Indians! Indians!” Columbus cried; His heart was filled with joyful pride.
But “India” the land was not; It was the Bahamas, and it was hot.
The Arakawa natives were very nice; They gave the sailors food and spice.
Columbus sailed on to find some gold To bring back home, as he’d been told.
He made the trip again and again, Trading gold to bring to Spain.
The first American? No, not quite. But Columbus was brave, and he was bright.
Where is the Mob when you need them??
In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
He discovered America and of him they made a statue
Liberals said “that’s racist and offensive” like they say about everything else.
Posted by me in another Columbus thread :
No dark history. Europeans discovered an under utilized pair of continents peopled by races that mostly died when subjected to smallpox and other diseases. And we utilized those continents.
The Indians are playing in the Bronx today...
Indian chief: “You out of luck. Banks closed.”
Columbus: “Really?”
Indian chief: “_Columbus Day_”
—Stan Freberg
Just think, if Columbus had died of scurvy while on his way here, his first mate, Seymour Luckovich, would have gotten all the credit and we would be celebrating Luckovich Day.......
Why blame Columbus when it was Pizarro who’s diseased men and pigs started an epidemic that may have killed 2 million first Americans.
Columbus was one of the luckiest sons of guns who ever lived. First he trusted his own calculations of the planet’s circumference over those of Eratosthenes. Plus be believed the earth was pear-shaped, and considerably smaller in the northern hemisphere than at the equator. And he trusted in the accuracy of the maps of Asia that had been based on the accounts of Marco Polo. Except Polo had greatly exaggerated the size of Asia to make his exploits seem all the more heroic. Taken together, Columbus underestimated the distance from Europe to Asia (when sailing to the west) by on the order of 12,000 miles.
A Spanish Caravelle could sail about 3500 miles on a full ration of food an water so the typical exploratory tactic was to sail outbound on the order of 1750 miles, and if you hadn’t made landfall by that point, you’d turn around and come home. Except it was 3100 miles before Columbus reached the Bahamas (which was barely a quarter of the way to his intended destination of Asia).
And contrary to popular myth, his crew were not condemned convicts or derelict sailors who couldn’t get real work. They were among the most experienced and accomplished sailors at Ferdinand and Isabella’s disposal. The sort of men who’d have had a pretty finely-honed sense for when they’d reached (and passed) that point of no return. And they’d have known they were weeks beyond it before they reached the Bahamas.
So somewhere before they made landfall, they probably had a staff meeting with Chris to voice their concerns. Whether they were brandishing knives (and whether Chris was standing or prostrate) when this conversation took place isn’t known, but what is known is Columbus must have been one heck of a salesman, else they’d probably have slit his throat, tossed his body into the ocean, and sworn to God that he’d died of scurvy.
Instead he stumbled onto a 63 square mile island he had no reason to know was there in a 41 million square mile ocean and earned a permanent spot in the history of the world. He might have been Italian but he had the luck of the Irish.
Humans migrate for many reasons. The “indigenous” people in America migrated. When two groups of people run into each other, many times the inferior culture disappears or is absorbed into the superior one.
The Europeans were superior in technology, science, weaponry, social organization, organized religion, laws, governments, building, medicine, transportation and so on. The people who were here were overrun, as the europeans population increased and needed more space and resources. Wars were fought and land settled and the people with seniority lost out. Those are the facts of life.
This anti-columbus movement is anchored by leftists and Mexicans in the US who forget they have Spanish blood in them.
Columbus was brave and a great explorer. As a person of European descent, I am thankful he came here. I know his voyages lead to the greatest nation in the history of the word. That’s why I celebrate Columbus day. If you want a day get your own.
‘native’ - Nobody just popped up out the ground.
“I can see Ohio, Columbus.”
“That’s Columbus, Ohio!”