I admire Christopher Columbus, not because he was Italian, Genovese, or whatever, I admire him because he had stones the size of beachballs to do what he did.
As you said, it was historic. Sure, someone else would have eventually done it, just like someone would have flown across the Atlantic if Charles Lindbergh hadn’t done it, or walked on the moon if Neil Armstrong hadn’t.
But they didn’t.
The Norsemen people keep referring to didn’t make it back to their homeland and set up a relay of people who kept coming over. If they did, that would be called a discovery. But it wasn’t. Shipwrecked sailors have found undiscovered islands, but nobody gives a hoot who they are, if it wasn’t memorialized and followed up on.
Nothing against the Scandinavians who clamor for Leif Erikson to get credit, but it sounds a lot like me to the countries that over the years wanted to re-write history and claim Columbus for their own, saying he was really Spanish, or Portuguese, or whatever.
Columbus was the one who did it. Columbus made it here, and he was trying to make it here, as a part of his journey to the Orient, not blown off course and shipwrecked. He not only came here, he made it back and told everyone about it.
Then to show it was no fluke, came back two more times, and the third trip broke his health.
First European to see the New World. He was also the first European to see a cyclonic ocean storm like a hurricane and described the precursors and sea states for future generations.
He was a real man.
Agreed! And his faith seemed legitimate. People call him greedy, but the God of the Bible advocated for Private ownership, industriousness, and personal property.