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Explanation: Christopher Columbus, who was a genocidal, slaving shithead, never realized he found a new landmass. His famous expedition was based on faulty calculations - presuming that the Earth was ~2/3s the size it actually was, contrary to contemporary knowledge (which had accurately known the rough size of the Earth since the 3rd century BCE) - and when he landed, he thought he had landed on the outskirts of fucking India (hence the term ‘Indians’ for Native Americans).
Despite making several more trips, Columbus went to his deathbed believing that he had found a route to India and just needed to root around a little more to find a spot with all the spices and polities that Europe was vaguely familiar with - a notion that the contemporary Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, from whom we get the term ‘America’, pretty roundly refuted.
It’s kind of fascinating how the term “Indians” for Native Americans caught on so quickly and thoroughly. Within 10 years of the first voyage, it was clear the new land is not in any way connected to India. And the name still persisted.
Not a unique phenomenon. Roma are still called “Gypsies” by many, which has its roots in the very wrong assumption that they’re from Egypt.
Even in Canada, being a member of First Nations is officially called an Indian Status.
Some native Americans still prefer the term because it reminds of the stupidity of the white man
Yeah, the cartoon I was shown in first grade of Columbus, the eccentric genius who first postulated that the Earth was round…is full of shit.
Everyone including Columbus knew the Earth was round. Columbus was the weirdo moron who used statute miles in an equation that called for nautical miles and then miscalculated the Earth’s size by about a third. He managed to convince the Spanish crown to fund a voyage (I think they finally funded the voyage hoping he’d sail out to sea, die and shut up), he sailed South to the Canaries and then a little south of due West, expecting to hit the Philippines.
And lo he made landfall on a series of large-ish islands like Haiti, Cuba and Jamaica. Why wouldn’t you think those were the Philippines? On a later voyage, you sail further East, mistaking the Yucatan penninsula for Indonesia, and then arrive at a long, North-South shoreline which is…totally Malaysia. You sail up and down the isthmus of Central America looking for…and somehow never finding, the Singapore Straight, because you’re not in the Gulf of Thailand, you’re in the Gulf of Mexico.
On yet another voyage, he sailed farther South, came across the delta of the Orinoco river, and came to the reasonable conclusion that a river with this much discharge must mean this is a huge landmass…but because you can’t make a man understand something if his job requires not understanding it, he assumed this was “the earthly paradise” which is why it was somehow uncharted this whole time.
Amerigo Vespucci was on a different voyage intending to find the way South around that landmass, and history records him as the one looking at Uruguay and saying “Look guys, I’m pretty sure this isn’t Indonesia.”
What a brainfuck Australia would have been to these people.
Yeah, the cartoon I was shown in first grade of Columbus, the eccentric genius who first postulated that the Earth was round…is full of shit.
Everyone including Columbus knew the Earth was round. Columbus was the weirdo moron who used statute miles in an equation that called for nautical miles and then miscalculated the Earth’s size by about a third.
Not only did everyone know the Earth was round, they knew he was wrong about its size. They didn’t object to the voyage because they thought they’d fall off the face of the Earth, they objected because it was a ridiculously long way to go all around the globe from Spain to India.
Like I say, I think Ferdinand and Isabella funded the mission hoping he’d die of scurvy 9,000 miles off shore so he’d quit bothering them. It just so happened that approximately where he extremely wrongly calculated India to be sat the islands of the Caribbean, and a bunch of people who had no idea what cosmic anvils were about to descend from on high upon them.
history records him as the one looking at Uruguay
URUGUAY MENCIONADO! PONGAN LAS BANDERAS!
Christopher Columbus, who was a genocidal, slaving shithead
Fun fact! His exploits in America are consistently brushed off in Italian public school. Students read about him thrice, in elementary (6-10), middle (11-13) and high school (14-18), as history lessons “reset” every education cycle. Every time I studied him, it was a short blurb about him discovering America, thinking it was India, and dying poor despite his big accomplishments.
Daily reminder that all countries (and some more than others) have issues facing their past still, even if it’s something that happened so many centuries ago, you’d think nobody would ever have a problem with it.
same in portugal, though we focus a lot more on our discoveries
I wonder why? He was Portuguese, funded by Sapin, and Italy wouldn’t be founded for another 4 centuries or so.
He was from Genoa not Portugal
Lands on first island: … IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD, THIS ENTIRE CONTINENT IS NOW MINE!
IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD, THIS ENTIRE CONTINENT IS NOW
MINETHE KING’S!I’m sure he said your version out loud … but to himself he said my version silently
“Wait!” said Christopher Columbus (probably smoking crack)…
Didn’t he only find some of the Caribbean islands? I’m not sure, but I tought mainland America was “discovered” by others. Besides the natives I mean.
He reached mainland Central and South America on his later expeditions.
Columbus made a total of four voyages to the New World, spending most of his time in the Caribbean. He did see the Isthmus of Central America and he saw the mouth of the Orinoco river in modern day Venezuela.
He went to his grave thinking he’d visited Asia and did not believe he had discovered a new continent. He thought the various Caribbean islands either were the Philippines or some remote unknown islands. Mind you this guy had Marco Polo’s White Guy’s Misinterpretations Of The East and some bad math to go on.
He sailed up and down the isthmus of Central America on one of his voyages looking for a straight into the Indian ocean. You can see how he might mistake the Gulf of Mexico for the Gulf of Thailand…until there outright is no Singapore Straight, and the Panama Canal wouldn’t exist for another 500 years.
He did see the mouth of the Orinoco river, and observed that a river discharging this much water must mean this is the coast of a huge landmass. Which he apparently took for the “earthly paradise” which was supposed to be somewhere in the East. And instead of checking that out he brutally enslaved the Caribbean natives.
It wasn’t until an expedition attempting to sail south around that big landmass that navigator Amerigo Vespucci said “Look, there’s no way this could possibly be indonesia. I can’t make what we’re seeing here fit any map I have. We have to be in a new, undiscovered land.”
Still later, Magellan managed to accomplish Columbus’ goal of reaching the spice islands by sailing West across the Atlantic…armed with a more correct understanding of the Earth’s size and the idea that a big vertical continent was in the way.
He went to his grave thinking he’d visited Asia and did not believe he had discovered a new continent.
Really? Didn’t know that.
At least some of it is the principle that you can’t make a man understand something if his job requires him to not understand it. Columbus was, essentially, a capitalist. Anything that matched the maps and descriptions he was working from was evidence that he’d made it to Asia. Anything that didn’t match was proof that they’d landed in a remote, unexplored part of Asia. He was going to exploit it, anyway. He didn’t find any hint of pepper or cloves but by god he was going to wring the gold out of these people one way or another.
Beautiful continent. Too bad it is marred by that shit hole in the middle.
