Jim-
What does one do on Columbus Day?
Nothing really, except have a day off if you are a federal employee.
You are right, he never set foot on American shores.
When I taught school, I told my children that the notion that Christopher Columber "discovered America" is misleading.
We really ought to be having an Amerigo Vespucci Day.
Christopher Columbus is celebrated for all the wrong reasons.
Here's why is IS important however:
1. He formulated a plan to solve a serious global problem. The problem was that there was no more peaceful route to the East anymore.
2. His plan was outrageous and unheard of, but he stood by his ideas and tried it anyway.
3. His idea was to "just see what's out there". That attitude is extremely important in innovators, leaders, great thinkings, wise people, and those who courageously strive for solving the unsolvable.
What if Jonas Salk or Madame Curie or Patrick Henry or Martin Luther or Susan B. Anthony and all the people like them including Christopher Columber said, "Well, I've got a really good plan, but I don't think it will really work, and anyways...nobody will trust me or even want to listen to me."
Christopher Columbus is important because he thought "outside the box" and actually put feet to his words.
He is NOT important nor should he be celebrated for "discovering" anything.
How can you discover two continents when there are already millions of people living there who have know about it for centuries?????
It's really a racist concept.
We should change the word "discover" to "uncover".
He "uncovered" the geographical ignorance of his own people. He made the rest of the world known to his own world.
The world was forever changed because of his "uncovering" of two continents and making their presence known to the rest of the world.
But, alas, Christopher Columbus went to his deathbed believing that he had found China. He would not listen to men like Amerigo Vespucci who tried to tell him so.
Amerigo Vespucci did his homework first. He went to the libraries and studied the many books of Marco Polo and his families that described China in GREAT detail.
After his trip, he came back to the king and said, "I have seen a land with more animals, plants, and people than you can shake a stick at. And it ain't China." (my paraphrasing, of course)
The two continents were names after Amerigo Vespucci by the first man to actually put them on a map. (Martin ?)
And we never give Vespucci a second thought.
And we credit Christopher Columbus with just a tad too much, in my personal opinion.
He's definitely important....and should be in our history books, but not to the degree that he is practically glorified.
He did not discover America. He did not discover anything.
He uncovered extremely important geographic information that lead to an altering change in world history.
Peace-
Scarlett O.
<><
