Yes, Christopher Columbus discovered America.
And yes, I know that it’s popular for certain people these days to “enlighten” us all with their brilliant knowledge and personal discovery that what we have been taught in the evil schools of the Establishment for all these past decades is completely wrong. We shouldn’t be sheep. We shouldn’t just accept the commonly accepted story. Columbus didn’t discover America. He wasn’t the first European to sail across the Atlantic. And there were people here in the first place before any Europeans arrived, so the Europeans don’t count as discoverers of America anyway.
Columbus never set foot on any soil that ended up being part of the United States, so Columbus didn’t discover America. Columbus only landed on and sailed around a few islands, so Columbus didn’t discover America. Columbus never even set foot on any New World continental mainland, so Columbus didn’t discover America. And Columbus started an imperialist conquest of innocent people of epic proportions that lasted for hundreds of years and ended up enslaving and killing millions of people, so we shouldn’t acknowledge Columbus as having discovered America.
Okay.
But you know what?
Christopher Columbus discovered America.
Yes, Leif Ericson sailed to the North American continent. He landed in what is now Canada. He probably went down the East Coast of what is now the United States. But we don’t know how far. And why is it that we don’t know how far he sailed? … Because he never did anything else about it. He sent word back to his little village back home. But he didn’t tell the rest of Europe. His voyage didn’t accomplish anything useful except as, effectively, a little vacation trip across the pond. He didn’t even take any pictures and send them to his friends or post them on FaceBook.
Leif Ericson’s “discovery” doesn’t count.
THIS IS A STUB ARTICLE WHICH WILL EXPAND ON THE FOLLOWING TOPICS:
(Need to post a map of the suspected route of Columbus’ several journeys.)
The islands that Columbus landed on are part of America – the “New World.”
Columbus most likely actually did set foot briefly on the shores of either Central or South America.
But mostly: He brought word back to Europe during a time when Europeans were looking for trade routes and resources. This actually counts as a real discovery.
And yes, the imperialistic conquest was brutal. But:
Most deaths were the result of disease such as the plague. And there is no solid evidence that spreading the plague was intentional. (I need to do a bit more research and confirm this.) It would be insane for people to pack themselves away on a small boat for weeks at a time crossing the Atlantic ocean while knowingly carrying the plague with them. There was no known immunization to prevent themselves from getting it. People may have been brutal, but they were not that stupid.
European expansion inevitable. Sorry, but more innovative, ambitious, technically advanced people win out against people who are not. If you want to blame anything, then blame the propensity for people to enjoy sex. Because, whether you like it and acknowledge it or not, people liking sex is what makes more people who need to expand to someplace.