posted
So, in honor of Columbus Day, I watched the Discover Channel Special on Columbus last night.
In it they suggest that Columbus wasn't Italian, but Catalan. That he wasn't the son of a middle class weaver from Genoa that had his boats attacked, but was a noble, possibly bastard, Spaniard, who was a mercenary on the boats that attacked the Genoese merchant ships.
It was all very hyped up, but after reading pastwatch, was interesting to consider.
posted
Nah. "Columbus" was actually a sub-committee formed by the same committee that wrote all of "Shakespeare's" plays. The "discovery of America" was really a phrase that became popularized in more radical bureaucratic circles in the mid 1600s, and "1492" was probably some mid-level manager's losing lottery ticket number. In fact, the idea that any "discovery" was made at all is quite laughable. There was actually nothing remotely out of the ordinary or in the least bit exciting about how Europeans came to know about the western hemisphere.
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