(October 10, 2017 at 6:16 am)Brian37 Wrote:(October 9, 2017 at 8:10 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: Jesus Christ, can we at least rename Columbus Day after Leif Erickson, A) who made it to the New World over 400 years before Columbus, B) made it onto the continent, C) actually realised he had discovered a new world unlike Columbus who died convinced he had gone to India, D) shockingly for belonging to a proud warriot race, was most likely NOT complicit in crimes against humanity?
Hell, there already is a Leif Erickson Day, and it actually falls on October 9th, like Columbus Day does this year.
Or at least rename it after Amerigo Vespucci, who has fallen into obscurity despite figuring out that Columbus erred in assuming he reached India, and HAVING TWO CONTINENTS NAMED AFTER HIM as a result.
Why would we give credit to late comers, did nobody read the science article? Humans have been in the Americas for an estimated 50,000 years. Europeans did learn how to map things sure, but they were never the first humans on any continent.
Marketing. Columbus and his Spanish patrons advertised their finds and went back and forth repeatedly. The Norse did not.
There are well documented plagues throughout Greek and Roman history and we have Egyptian mummies with signs of small pox. And the Silk Road was in full swing when the Han Dynasty of China linked to it during the late 2d century BC. Plus there was a sea route as well which would have been not only faster but would have opened up the more southerly parts of Asia to east-west trade. There has to be another answer.
