4 ms·

Off topic ,but was Columbus really the discoverer of America? Follow up article : "Why Christopher Columbus was the Perfect Icon for a New Nation looking for a

• dgfgfdagasdfgfa 10y ago
  I mean, of course not. There were people living here already. Then there were the vikings.
  • kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
    He also never set foot on North American soil.
    • jcranmer 10y ago
      The Caribbean Islands are usually considered part of North America.
  • nickff 10y ago
    You can 'discover' a place or thing that other people already know about or populate. For instance, people often say they 'discovered' a new band or restaurant, and you can 'discover' a shipwreck or hidden tribe.
    • astrodust 10y ago
      Columbus was a hipster. Clearly. Shipwrecks are only considered discovered if nobody knows exactly where they were. That's why the "discovery" of the HMS Terror was controversial: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/terror-discovery-franklin-expedition-more-questions-1.3793820 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/terror-discovery-frankli... Indigenous people had carried, through oral tradition, stories of a ship stuck in ice in precisely that place but were dismissed out of hand by investigators. It turns out they were right. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/12/hms-terror-wreck-found-arctic-nearly-170-years-northwest-passage-attempt https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/12/hms-terror-wre... The place where they found that was, in the local tongue, a place called "Big Ship Here".
    • dgfgfdagasdfgfa 10y ago
      People say a lot of stupid shit. This doesn't make it meaningful. Who cares if columbus wasn't aware of north america? Many others were, including people in Europe—the location, size, and extent of the continent was unknown, but people were certainly aware of Vinland. Columbus was more radical in the sense that we was willing to risk dying to find out.
    • dragonwriter 10y ago
      > You can 'discover' a place or thing that other people already know about or populate. But you can't discover something without recognizing that it is new (someone else can discover it from your descriptions, however) and Columbus went to his grave insisting that he had reached the East Indies. Even by the standard by which one might "discover" a populated land, Columbus didn't, he merely encountered it. Other people recognized the value and significance and the opportunities itmade available given the technology of the day, which is why his voyages (unlike prior ones) led to prolonged contact between Europe and the New World. And his failure to recognize the novelty of what he had encountered is why Europeans ended up naming the continents of the New World after a map maker, and not Columbus.
• huherto 10y ago
  Columbus travels changed the world. It is arguably the most important discovery in human history. Even if the Vickings were first you have to consider the historical significance.
  • metaphorm 10y ago
    > It is arguably the most important discovery in human history Fire? Writing? Textiles? There's a case to be made its the most important discovery of his era, but then, we do tend to be Eurocentric here and the Chinese were at the climax of a centuries long golden age when Colombus was doing his thing in America.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    • huherto 10y ago
      There is a reason we are Eurocentric. That is precisely because Europeans discovered America. It changed their mindset. They started looking outwards while the Chinese kept looking inwards. It launched an era of exploration. Fire, writing and textiles are prehistoric discoveries/inventions.
  • dragonwriter 10y ago
    > It is arguably the most important discovery in human history. Maybe, but I've yet to see even a remotely plausible argument for that position. I mean anything can be argued, but that doesn't mean there is a good argument for it, and in the case of Columbus "discovery", I don't see any reasonable standard on which it reaches anywhere near the importance of, say, agriculture. Or zero. Or lots of others.
    • huherto 10y ago
      It changed the mind set of Europeans. It inspired them. They started looking outward. An era of exploration was launched. This is why Europe's culture is dominant all over the world.