Happy Columbus Day!

[ohiopiper]

History is full of folks who had to "take a turn in the barrel". Let's not judge things that happened centuries ago with the lens of the twenty-first century. Our progeny I'm sure will look back and cringe at some of the barbaric things we do. What are they? Don't know. We don't consider them barbaric.

Anyhow, I'm all for celebrating the accomplishments of historic people, even if they were flawed. If we chose only the perfect ones, we'd have no Holidays other than Christmas and Easter. Personally, I like more than two holidays a year.

[ForresterModern]

Not to be a bubble burster but there is some genetic research that says that Columbus was likely of Catalan origin (a portion of northeast Spain that at the time was not part of Spain, and actually spread eastward into Northern Italy to encompass where Columbus' family is said to originally hail from. It was only later that the Catalan throne and Spanish throne were joined into surrent day Spain, and parts of the old Catalan were lost to now Italy.).

[macwilkin]

Just posting this and I'm done.

Howard Zinn was one of the most highly respected, reputable and incisive historians of the modern world and wrote extensively on a myriad of topics. To boot he is even-handed and objective about matters of history. I'll have to look and see if he's ever written anything about kilts.

Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

And in the spirit of looking at both sides, I will offer the works of another historian, Colin Calloway, as a rebuttal in kind to the works of Mr. Zinn. Calloway is a noted expert on European-Indian relations and has published a number of titles, including one of my favourites, White People, Highlanders and Indians. However in this post, I would highly recommend reading his New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America to balance Zinn's writings.

Calloway does not villify European or Indian, but simply points out their common humanity, warts and all.

T.

[Antonio]

Ah... so Columbus was a Jewish, who lived in Spain, but became Italian when the county line moved???

LOL! I guess if we're gonna get technical... You're all Italian because the Roman's marched into all of Europe wearing tunics, kicked everyone's naked *** and made them all wear kilts!

[Seumas52]

clipped from: www.lifeincatalonia.com

Christopher Columbus was actually a Scotsman called Pedro Scotto and his family originally came from Scotland, too claims a Spanish historian.

In a report by The Telegraph, these allegations made by Alfonso Ensenat de Villalonga have turned upside down the
normally accepted narratives regarding the famous explorer’s origins. He is said to be the son of a weaver from
Genoa, Italy or that he was even from Catalonia or Galicia in Spain.
“In fact, he was from Genoa, but he was the son of shopkeepers not weavers and he was baptised Pedro not Christopher,” stated Villalonga.

The historian also alleges that the explorer once worked for a pirate called Vincenzo Columbus, and adopted that family name so as not to “expose” his relations.
According to Alfonso Ensenat de Villalonga, his research involved scrutinizing the archives in the region of
Genoa, Italy along with those held in the Spanish history academy and national library.

http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/E2FAE9...-B994BF144319/

OK whose next to claim him?

[Lallans]

Of course the latest theories have it that Europeans from the area of France first crossed into North America during the last ice age, using the helpful bridge of the ice cap that extended that far south in those days, and their descendants were here at the end of the same ice age when the Asian nomads were able to move in from the north, the two groups forming the native populations present when Columbus landed. But St Brendon predeeded him, also the Vikings, and St Brendon, at least, claimed to have been greeted by fellow Europeans when he got here. Anyway, what happened after Columbus happened, and now most of my native friends drive SUVs to the mall instead of buffalo or caribou herds off the cliffs. What the socialist theorists pretend to prefer is that the Euro-Asian native North Americans were left in the stone age and Europe in the iron age. What would happened then is that they would have moved in with their progroms and five year plans and the slaughter would have happened anyway, only a factor of ten worse and totally destructive to boot. Phooey!

Fellow Canucks living in the USA used to tell me they really liked the "Columbus Day sales" but that recently they have dropped off to practically nothing- now that is relevant!

[Lallans]

Double post.

[Irish Jack O'Brian]

Speculative histories are fun in science fiction, but I personally am uncomfortable defending the historical actions of someone like Columbus by making up a worse scenario in a what-if world. Not sure this is the proper venue to vent on historical methodologies.

[Woodsheal]

Just posting this and I'm done.

Howard Zinn was one of the most highly respected, reputable and incisive historians of the modern world and wrote extensively on a myriad of topics. To boot he is even-handed and objective about matters of history. I'll have to look and see if he's ever written anything about kilts.

Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

Sure, if you like your history with a leftist-revisionist flavor to it, Zinn's your man...!

[Lallans]

Speculative histories are fun in science fiction, but I personally am uncomfortable defending the historical actions of someone like Columbus by making up a worse scenario in a what-if world. Not sure this is the proper venue to vent on historical methodologies.

Yeah well if this comment was regarding my last post on this thread, all of the theory I quoted (except, possibly, for St Brendan's account) is part of modern archoleogical theory and while no scientific theory should ever be considered proven, this one is strongly supported by European stone age tools and skeletons that have been dug up all across North American, as well as that touchstone of our age, DNA evidence. If memory serves, my first exposure to all this was via the National Geographic Society.
And if you want to know how socialism works, look at the 20th century. 100 million killed and all we got was North Korea.