Free Republic

Columbus Day will now be known as Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Seattle. The Seattle City Council on Monday unanimously approved the re-designation, which acknowledges that Native Americans were living in North America well before Christopher Columbus “discovered America” in the 15th century, Reuters reports. The change, which will go into effect before the Oct. 13 holiday this year, marks the second major city in the U.S. to officially re-designate the day, after Minneapolis’ vote in April.

For a guy who claimed to spend 17 years in China as a confidant of Kublai Khan, Marco Polo left a surprisingly skimpy paper trail. No Asian sources mention the footloose Italian. The only record of his 13th-century odyssey through the Far East is the hot air of his own Travels, which was actually an “as told to” penned by a writer of romances. But a set of 14 parchments, now collected and exhaustively studied for the first time, give us a raft of new stories about Polo’s journeys and something notably missing from his own account: maps. If genuine,...

In 1491, German cartographer Henricus Martellus created a map of the world that would help Christopher Columbus navigate the Atlantic. Today, the map holds secrets about what Europeans in the 15th Century knew about geography. But unfortunately much of its historic text has faded. But now a team of researchers in the US is using a technique called multispectral imaging to uncover the hidden information that Columbus had at his fingertips. In 1491, cartographer Henricus Martellus created a map of the world that would help Christopher Columbus navigate the Atlantic. Today, it holds secrets into what 15th Century Europeans knew...

SEATTLE– The vote to rename Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day in Seattle has been postponed so the Mayor and other elected officials can hold a signing ceremony next month to mark the change. Columbus Day has been celebrated throughout the United States for decades, but the Human Rights Commission pushed for the name change. The proposal is being sponsored by council members Bruce Harrell and Kshama Sawant...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Columbus Public Health confirms a person is undergoing testing and has been quarantined for the deadly Ebola virus. A spokesperson says they’re working with the CDC to learn the preliminary results of those tests. CPH says the person recently traveled to West Africa, where an outbreak has left nearly 900 people dead. The virus can be transmitted through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals. According to the CDC, symptoms include sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhea, rash,...

An obviously very educated and intelligent feminist in a Burger King outfit demonstrated her superior grasp of morality by trashing anti-abortion signs and launching into a classic frothing-at-the-mouth diatribe exposition of everything wrong with those who consider themselves to be pro-life. You Tube

The top-rated tourist attraction in Columbus is not our highly regarded zoo. It’s an obscure museum of religious artifacts.So says TripAdvisor, the influential travel website (www.tripadvisor.com) that uses consumer reviews to compile rankings.In fact, you won’t find the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium anywhere on the TripAdvisor list of 70 or so Columbus destinations.Why? It’s in Powell. By TripAdvisor’s organizational principles, the zoo isn’t a Columbus attraction. (TripAdvisor’s Columbus site, however, has articles on the zoo.)In a way, I’m happy about the situation because, although the zoo doesn’t need TripAdvisor’s help to attract tourists, the Jubilee Museum does. And it deserves...

While Christopher Columbus is generally credited with having discovered America in 1492, a 1521 Spanish report provides inklings of evidence that there were, in fact, Irish people settled in America prior to Columbus’ journey. […] In 1520, Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, a historian and professor, was appointed by Carlos V to be chronicler for the new Council of the Indies. Though Martyr died in 1526, his report, founded on several weeks of interviews, was published posthumously in a book named De Orbe Novo (About the New World). […] While interviewing Spanish colonists, Martyr took note of their vicious treatment of Chicora...

One Queens-based e-commerce startup is poised to grow aggressively over the next few years, and has found just the place to do it: Ohio. Gwynnie Bee, a subscription service for the lease and sale of plus-size women’s apparel, reportedly plans to add 400 new positions over the next few years at a new 100,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution facility on the outskirts of Columbus. The company’s executive and marketing operations will remain in New York City, where Gwynnie Bee will still be officially headquartered, but the 42 warehouse and distribution workers at the company’s current Long Island City warehouse will be...

The ship that led Christopher Columbus' mission to discover America has been found after 500 years, it has been claimed. A recent expedition has left experts 'confident' a wreck found off the north coast of Haiti is the the Santa Maria. The 58foot ship was the flagship of the expectation, but its final whereabouts have never been known - until now. The Santa María was belived to be a 58 ft (17.7 m) long boat, described as 'very little larger than 100 toneladas' (About 100 tons, or tuns). It was used as the flagship for the expedition, along with the...

Christopher Columbus might have sailed the ocean blue in 1492, but he will no longer have a holiday in his name in Minneapolis. "The Minneapolis City Council voted to, as some would say, set the record straight. Their unanimous vote renames Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day." A Minneapolis state representative says the new name is an effort to honor Native American culture. "This would be a day to celebrate our survival as a culturally distinct people despite 500 years of disease, warfare, massacre, displacement and forced assimilation." This change got a lot of people fired up on social media,...

Controversial billboards in Columbus, Ohio, reading "Jesus is Muslim" and "Mohammed is in the Bible" are drawing protests from local Christians who say Muslims are "hijacking" the name of Jesus. "Although we support the Islamic community's right to free speech, as well as their right to post messages on billboards, we do not support the hijacking of the name of Jesus Christ in their attempt to lure uninformed Christians into their religion," Coach Dave Daubenmire of Pass the Salt Ministries said in a statement Thursday. Daubenmire is hosting a prayer vigil on Saturday alongside the Rev. Rusty Thomas of Operation...

A Columbus principal suspended a student for three days last week after the child pointed a "lookalike firearm” at another student in class and pretended to shoot. The boy’s age? 10. The “level 2 lookalike firearm” cited in his suspension letter? His finger. “I was just playing around,” said Nathan Entingh, a fifth-grader at Devonshire Alternative Elementary School in a far northern section of the district. “People play around like this a lot at my school.” Other kids have been caught playing pretend gun games on the playground at Devonshire and weren’t suspended, Nathan said. Devonshire Principal Patricia Price has...

America's kids have been suspended for pretending that pencils were guns, but an Ohio school may have topped that. A 10-year-old student at a Columbus elementary school was handed a three-day suspension for making a finger gun and pretending to shoot a classmate. The suspension letter more formally referred to his weapon as a "level 2 lookalike firearm," reports the Columbus Dispatch. Devonshire Alternative Elementary School's principal says students have been frequently told not to play pretend gun games, with a district rep saying kids were warned consequences would follow. Those consequences hit hard last week for fifth-grader Nathan Entingh,...

Updated: Monday, February 17 2014, 08:02 PM EST WEST COLUMBUS (James Jackson/Kelsey Mallahan) -- A family’s dog was fatally shot Sunday by police officers after they were called to the home because a moving truck was blocking traffic. Brittnay Bergman and Dustin Ramsey just moved into the house on South Wayne Ave. They said when officers came to their door, their three to four-year-old Boxer, Delilah, ran out of the house. "She jumped off the porch, growled at him. Put herself in the corner of our fence and greenhouse," Ramsey said. Ramsey said that's when the officer grabbed his weapon....

Keith Dennis was walking home when he was approached by two men. One of the suspects held a knife to Dennis’ back and demanded money. “I thought I was going to die, to tell you the truth, because the knife was 10 inches long,” said Dennis. The men followed him home. Dennis had a friend sleeping upstairs who sensed something was wrong. He came down and fired shots at the men.

When this case first appeared, at the height of the first exposure of  the Fast and Furious scandal, it was highlighted as an example of smuggling to the Mexican cartels that was *not* a part of the operation.    It might or might not be significant that the BATFE agent quoted in the article is William Newell, who had a significant role in Fast and Furious, and whose testimony before congress became infamous. Now, one of the victims of the prosecution is able to tell a bit of his story.   He was never allowed bail from the time he was...

I grew up in a blue collar, Democratic family. We have been Democratic on both sides of the family, at least since the beginning of the 20th century. I never questioned what decisions my party representatives made as a very young man, say 18 years old. I presumed (wrongly) that these elected officials would always do what was right. I also accepted as indisputable fact that , well of course the Republicans were always, always in the wrong. The republicans were greedy and 'keeping us down'. You can imagine my surprise when, as a college freshman in 1975, I heard...

In Columbus’s day, the Moon was often used to get a rough fix of a ship’s longitude at sea. Columbus was especially intrigued with the idea of using lunar eclipses to determine longitude. If you can note the position of the Moon in the sky from one location versus a known longitude during an event— such as first contact of the Moon with the Earth’s umbra during an eclipse —you can gauge your relative longitude east or west of the point. The sky moves 15 degrees, or one hour of right ascension overhead as we rotate under it. One of...

In honor of Columbus Day, enjoy this clip from Drive Thru History.