Columbus was a total idiot.
The people replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day are total idiots too.
Columbus wasn’t an idiot...he was the world’s first Democrat.
When he left, he didn’t know where he was going..
When he got there, he didn’t know where he was.
When he got back, he didn’t know where he had been.
And he did it all on other people’s money!
?
Other than being one of the two or three greatest navigators in history. Before the invention of the sextant—which meant navigating just by the sun and estimating his ship's speed by eye—he sailed across the notoriously stormy North Atlantic without losing his way, and keeping his crew in line with prayer and discipline.
Everyone thought Asia would be the next land mass. Hah! But there was no Wikipedia or Google earth then, sorry. He had his latitude about right for Japan, but of course it wasn't Japan. He landed in the Bahamas on an island the natives named after a lizard—Guanahani—which we now call the iguana. But Columbus had bigger plans and a slightly greater vision. He called it San Salvador or "Holy Savior." He explored the area and sailed back to Spain.
Then he returned to that same spot (4000 miles each way) to explore some more—three times. Safely, without getting lost. How are you on a lake in a rowboat, in a cloudy downpour? Then we can talk about "idiot."
Explain-- don't just hit and run away like a democrat without valid facts.
The 16th and 17th century Spanish considered the discovery of the Americas to be the second greatest event in human history. It was second only to the birth, life, death, and resurrection of our savior Jesus Christ. Columbus was no idiot. He was one of the world’s greatest navigators during his day. He made four trips to the New World and back without getting lost or destroyed in a stormy Atlantic. He was not perfect, but he certainly was not stupid, evil, or greedy.
Columbus simply sailed a ship. Why is Columbus a legitimate hero? He went into the unknown. As much as Neil Armstrong, Columbus stuck his neck out and managed to get back in one piece to his homeland.
Anyone thinking I’m being melodramatic, didn’t read about the El Faro cargo ship lost at sea with all 33 hands during Hurricane Joaquin just a week ago.
Columbus had no idea what he was venturing into. And candy-ass revisionists centuries later think they have the moral high ground to judge this man. He didn’t go seeking native americans, and his adventure into the unknown is the basis of our remembrance of him. Not some politically correct fantasy about Indians dreamed up by lazy-minded academics of our day.
Kind of view this as “pay back” after i read the Italian - American powers discredited and squellched (in the ‘60’s) any credit to the Vikings who have pretty much have been proven to have reached North America 300-400 years before Columbus..