Happy Columbus Day!!!

[picky]

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue!.....

[CECAA850]

In 1496, Columbus sailed the ocean blue!.....

That doesn't rhyme. Try 1492[].

[picky]

Oops! Typo. Thanks! Corrected. That's better. [:S]

[dtel]

That was his brother in 1496, Picante Columbus, he always tried to take credit for his brothers achievements, he later went on to become famous for his sauce ! []

[oldtimer]

Italians backed by the spanish. Those indeed were the days.

[sunburnwilly]

I wonder how happy it was for the folks living in the Bahamas at the time .

[Islander]

I wonder how happy it was for the folks living in the Bahamas at the time .

From Wikipedia:

First European encounter

It is now believed that the first tribe encountered by Christopher Columbus, when he arrived on the island he called Santa María de la Concepcion (known as Mamana by the Lucayan Indians and now called Rum Cay off the Bahamas), were Lucayan-Arawak Indians. Columbus noted in his log:

"

Saturday, 13 October 1492:

...They brought us balls of cotton thread and parrots and other little things which it would be tedious to list, and exchanged everything for whatever we offered them. I kept my eyes open and tried to find out if there was any gold, and I saw that some of them had a little piece hanging from a hole in their nose. I gathered from their signs that if one goes south, or around the south side of the island, there is a king with great jars full of it, enormous amounts. I tried to persuade them to go there, but I saw that the idea was not to their liking...

Sunday, 14 October 1492:

...These people have little knowledge of fighting, as Your Majesties will see from the seven I have had captured to take away with us so as to teach them our language and return them, unless Your Majesties' orders are that they all be taken to Spain or held captive on the island itself, for with fifty men one could keep the whole population in subjection and make them do whatever one wanted."

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[Groomlakearea51]

Yah.... the natives were not "real happy" with Chris.... He brought them smallpox, syphilis and other interesting infections which wiped out the Arawaks, and the original (and quite vicious...) Caribes who went into battle wearing large smelly fish on their heads..... Their favorite "hobby" was raiding the other islands and in particular, the Arawaks for their women... (Well, if ya gotta' have a hobby, have a productive one!!). Their other "hobby" was ritualistic cannibalism by taking tasty bites out of their defeated enemies. The Caribe tribes were considered as the "best of the best" when it came to warfare. There's actually a few of them left. Their heritage is, of course, the origin of the name "Carribean".

[H]

[jacksonbart]

Ohh.. someone from Europe had already sailed to the Americas 500 years before Columbus and I think he was limited to spreading gonorrhea and good tidings

.

[Islander]

Ohh.. someone from Europe had already sailed to the Americas 500 years before Columbus and I think he was limited to spreading gonorrhea and good tidings

Yes, good old Leif came to the Americas back when "viking" was a verb, as in "Let's go viking!" It was a very unfriendly form of early tourism, which was only made possible by very lax North American immigration laws prior to about 1700.

However, he was much later than Saint Brendan. Since he lacked GPS or even Loran C, Chris Columbus followed Saint B's directions on his voyage.

From Wikipedia (I spend way too much time on that site):

There is a St. Brendan Society that celebrates the belief that Brendan was the first European to reach America. Tim Severin demonstrated it is possible that a leather-clad boat such as the one described in the Navigatio could have reached North America.^[8][9] Some have alleged that Christopher Columbus relied on the manuscript "Navigatio sancti Brendani abbatis" that told of St. Brendan's travels across the Atlantic.^[10] It is well established that Columbus went to look for St. Brendan’s Isle when he discovered the West Indies.^{[citation needed]} As a student of the University of Pavia, Columbus would have learned of Brendan’s voyage from the manuscripts brought there, seven hundred years previously, by Dugal, student and founder of the University of Pavia. On the eve of his great voyage in 1492 he wrote: “I am convinced that the terrestrial paradise is in the Island of Saint Brendan, which none can reach save by the Will of God.<sup>[11]


Luckily, Chris didn't find the Island of Saint Brendan, so the natives there continued to live happily.</sup>