NationStates Jolt Archive

Yesterday was Columbus day in the States. What is your opinion of Columbus? Was he a great man or one of histories greatest monsters (or somewhere in the middle)?

I'm not that big on columbus because of his treatment of the natives and things, but then that was fairly par for the course back in the day and he had promised the Spanish royal family a fair amount of riches and was probably a bit worried. He was convinced the world was round and stuck with it until he found someone to fund his trip. Being the one who 'discovered' America is a bit of a wierd thing to call him. Just out of curiosity, do any other countries in the Americas celebrate Columbus like the US do?

Just out of curiosity, do any other countries in the Americas celebrate Columbus like the US do?

I have no idea, I don't think Canada does. Good question.

The vikings were landing on the Americas centuries before Columbus, they just chose not to tell anyone :p

No we don't make any fuss about him in Canada.

Chris Columbus... oh yeah he directed the good Harry Potter films didn't he?

Wonder if Italy celebrate Columbus at all. Probably not. not a good advert for the race. Can't have people getting off their asses and actually.. doing stuff

well with the discovery of that little viking settlement up on the east coast and the general acceptance that they got there first, isn't about time to rename the day Viking Day?

i know there was that stupid fake map thing from a while ago, but still surely you should be honouring you scandavian discoverers rather than columbus. i mean drinking beer, invading small countries and takin crap from nobody, now surely thats something america can relate to? :p

Yesterday was Columbus day in the States. What is your opinion of Columbus? Was he a great man or one of histories greatest monsters (or somewhere in the middle)?

He was between great man and somewhere in the middle.

Noone can take away from the guy what he did. His discovery (or re-discovery as the Vikings got there first) of the New World was a truly monumental event in world history.

Chris Columbus... oh yeah he directed the good Harry Potter films didn't he?

Wonder if Italy celebrate Columbus at all. Probably not. not a good advert for the race. Can't have people getting off their asses and actually.. doing stuff

No Columbus directed the terrible first two Harry Potter films. They were simply, and being very very kind to them, awful!

The Prisoner of Azkaban was a breath of fresh air. Michael Gambon was also very good as Dumbledore (Richard harris was good previously, but the films were just too poor to really notice).

well with the discovery of that little viking settlement up on the east coast and the general acceptance that they got there first, isn't about time to rename the day Viking Day?

i know there was that stupid fake map thing from a while ago, but still surely you should be honouring you scandavian discoverers rather than columbus. i mean drinking beer, invading small countries and takin crap from nobody, now surely thats something america can relate to? :p


St Brendan got there from Ireland in the 6th Century, before the vikings. And apparently (http://www.castletown.com/brendan.htm) he left carvings in old irish in west virginia.

I don't know what columbus did other than sail to america, but that makes him a good sailor, not a great man. And at the time columbus sailed, lots of people believed the earth was round.

This thread reminds me, has anyone ever read 'American Gods' by Neil Gaiman? There is a great chapter in there (think it's the first chapter) about the Vikings discovering the Americas and bringing their Gods to the country. Not gonna go into gorey details about what they did to the poor Native American when he came to meet and greet them...

No Columbus directed the terrible first two Harry Potter films. They were simply, and being very very kind to them, awful!

The Prisoner of Azkaban was a breath of fresh air. Michael Gambon was also very good as Dumbledore (Richard harris was good previously, but the films were just too poor to really notice).

I'll take that as a searing reminder of bad taste :D . Sorry. Bit rude. Can't actually remember much of the first one but the second was good, cinematography and storyline-wise (as in, it kept to the story).

Azkaban screenplay was shocking: left out half the story, changed established parts and added a few unnecessary crap bits. How can you like Gambon as Dumbledore? you've read the books right? Harris (RIP) WAS Dumbledore.

Wasn't this thread about the explorer guy anyway?

I'll take that as a searing reminder of bad taste :D . Sorry. Bit rude. Can't actually remember much of the first one but the second was good, cinematography and storyline-wise (as in, it kept to the story).

Azkaban screenplay was shocking: left out half the story, changed established parts and added a few unnecessary crap bits. How can you like Gambon as Dumbledore? you've read the books right? Harris (RIP) WAS Dumbledore.

Wasn't this thread about the explorer guy anyway?

You're wrong. And yes it was.

Just out of curiosity, do any other countries in the Americas celebrate Columbus like the US do?

Not with parades and all that like in the US, there are civic ceremonies in many countries but nothing big. In Mexico City some people go to the Columbus statue on Paseo de la Reforma to throw eggs.

This is the kind of egocentric white oriented bigotry that really blows my mind.

The Americas didn't need to be discovered by some fat pasty white doofus from Europe - it was already settled by indiginous people.

Who discovered America - what a farce!

Is everyone in the North Pacific Region really this ignorant?

In my honest opinion I still think columbus was great detective or was that Columbo?

In all honesty a man who even after his discovery still thought he found china has a few screws loose if you ask me. Great..no! deluded......yes!

Wonder if Italy celebrate Columbus at all. Probably not. not a good advert for the race. Can't have people getting off their asses and actually.. doing stuffWhy would Italy celebrate him? He's from Iberia.

The vikings were landing on the Americas centuries before Columbus, they just chose not to tell anyone :p

And since they couldn't really settle successfully that was probably a good thing. Apparently China also "discovered" America a little before that, but they didn't settle either and then they went into their long slumber.

Columbus is a very ambivalent character, true of most Renaissance people. On the one hand, he has this idea to sail around the world to get to the Indies. Most of the people back then knew the world was round so this was theortically possible. What they thought made the trip impossible was the distance to travel. Columbus was convinced that the Earth was much smaller than it actually is (strange, since it's size was generally well known and had been calculated centuries before) and managed to convince the Spanish kings that such a trip was possible.

On the other hand, it is suspected that Columbus had one of those Piris Reis maps that depicted the coast of Brazil and North America and he thought that was Asia.

When he reached America, at times it seems he thinks he is in the Indies, at times he thinks it's a new continent and at times he thinks he's reached Paradise.

He didn't treat indians that bad, he just took a few back to Spain, but he didn't have the time to create permanent settlements and commit attrocities. Those would come later.

In my honest opinion I still think columbus was great detective or was that Columbo?


Ahh, Christopher Columbo, the great, trenchcoat wearing, intrepid discover of other peoples countries and crimes where the audience gets to know who did the crime at the start of each episode....

In that respect Columbo and Columbus are quite similar: they both discover things other people already know about :D

columbus was born in Italy, he sailed for Spain to the new world

This is the kind of egocentric white oriented bigotry that really blows my mind.

The Americas didn't need to be discovered by some fat pasty white doofus from Europe - it was already settled by indiginous people.

Who discovered America - what a farce!

Is everyone in the North Pacific Region really this ignorant?


If only you could read, you would notice that nobody suggested either the vikings or St Brendan discovered America. One person said that calling Columbus the man who discovered America was weird.

Incidentally, which part of the North Pacific Region am I in?

He was a man of his times--one part of that was the belief that anyone who wasn't European or Christian was inferior and that it was perfectly okay to kill, rape or enslave them in the name of God. (Sounds familiar, huh.) While that doesn't make him a modern role model, it also shouldn't detract from what he did, which was set out on a voyage of discovery with no real idea where he was going to end up or how long it would take him to get there. Takes massive, low-hanging balls to try something like that, so give credit where it's due.

Yes, America DID need to be discovered by the Western World, because they were up to then unaware of its existance. It's not bigotry, it's a point of fact; America did not exist to the most advanced area of civilisation in the world at that time. Colombus opened the gateway to the world, at least in the popular imagination, albeit by accident. No, he was not the first man there, nor were the vikings, nor yet the irish. However, his expedition was the one that caught European interest and led to the series of events that would turn america from an untamed wilderness frontier into the most powerful nation in history.

The french discovered America first, but the native americans laughed at their stupid clothes and beat them out of the country with bits of stick. The french thought they'd keep quiet about it.

...well it would be funny wouldn't it?

Didn't Magellan discover stuff round there anyway, before Columbus? Anyway, John Cabot discovered Newfoundland for England. Never mind.

I may or may not be wrong about Potter films:
IMDB ratings are:

Philosopher/Sorceror's stone 7.3/10
Chamber of Secrets 7.3/10 (hmmm)
Azkaban 7.7/10

Ok, can't argue with that. All I'm going to say is that if they don't split Goblet of Fire and the other one into two films, Kill Bill style, then they'll be crap.

P.S. Gambon sucks

In Australia we some time have the same type of problem. Every Australian knows that Captain Cook was the first person find and chart Australia, but we really know that ther was some Dutch people who did it before him. At least I think they were Dutch

In Australia we some time have the same type of problem. Every Australian knows that Captain Cook was the first person find and chart Australia, but we really know that ther was some Dutch people who did it before him. At least I think they were Dutch

Didn't the Dutch Guy find New Zealand? NZ. Beats Oz again!! :D

Yesterday was Columbus day in the States. What is your opinion of Columbus? Was he a great man or one of histories greatest monsters (or somewhere in the middle)?

The man was a bleedin' explorer, for God's sake! That's what he did ... explore. He wasn't a bloody liberal, he was an explorer! ( mutter, grumble, cuss )

Bit of Dutch pride here. The people who found Australia where dutch. Cook just charted it.

Abel tasman founded NZ along with Tasmania (before cook).

Yesterday was Columbus day in the States. What is your opinion of Columbus? Was he a great man or one of histories greatest monsters (or somewhere in the middle)?

Probably somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.

Bit of Dutch pride here. The people who found Australia where dutch. Cook just charted it.

Abel tasman founded NZ along with Tasmania (before cook).

Tasman didn't land in New Zealand, he just cruised into the sounds at the top of the south island and then didn't land because the Maori were too scary for him. Managed to get the Tasman sea, Tasmania and later Able Tasman national park named after him. He is credited as being the first European to spot NZ, but cook was the first to land.

The man was a bleedin' explorer, for God's sake! That's what he did ... explore. He wasn't a bloody liberal, he was an explorer! ( mutter, grumble, cuss )
Wow, talk about left field... I don't recall anyone calling him a liberal.... I think you better check your knee after that one, look for some bruises that weren't there before.

well with the discovery of that little viking settlement up on the east coast and the general acceptance that they got there first, isn't about time to rename the day Viking Day?

I don't know about you, but personally, every day is Viking Day.

columbus was a great man who did some bad things

it doesnt matter who "discovered" it first. who knows what unlucky soul in a small boat may have gotten blown from europe or africa over to north or south america. HE would have discovered it first

the point is WHO DID SOMETHING WITH IT?

columbus got the ball rolling. after him it became the thing to do to go over and see what was really there. the poor guy always thought that he was sailing all the way to the east indies. how stupid is that? its not an incredibly difficult calculation to figure out the approximate circumference of the earth.

of course the bad part comes in with the eurpeans' (including columbus and his men) treatement of the people they found living in the new world. it was an unmitigated disaster for most of those people.

1] It's been proven that Columbus was a Spaniard, not Italian. The History Channel did a nice documentary on it. Bones were studied, DNA testing, handwriting analysis, language analysis, all that nice stuff.

2] There were already people here. Columbus didn't discover anything. It would be like me "discovering" my neighbor's front porch.

3] Columbus was pretty damned inept. He came to the Bahamas and called it the Indies because he was clearly bad at navigation. People had already known for millenia that the world was round and sea navigation had been in wide use. I'm guessing the man couldn't even read a compass or sextant.

4] Columbus was deceptive. He told the royalty in Spain that he would bring back black pepper - very valued - and didn't find any, so he brought back chilis and called them peppers, which is why people today will mistakenly call them "jalapeno peppers" and "habenero peppers", etc. They're not peppers. They're a berry chock full of capsicum goodness.

5] The thrilling tales of danger and adventure are exceptionally false. In his own private journals, Columbus talks of seas so calm that they could speak to the other boats with ease across the waters. Also, the natives he encountered were welcoming and friendly and very generous.

I'm gonna have to say Columbus was a bufoon who has become the west's greatest fraud.

4] Columbus was deceptive. He told the royalty in Spain that he would bring back black pepper - very valued - and didn't find any, so he brought back chilis and called them peppers, which is why people today will mistakenly call them "jalapeno peppers" and "habenero peppers", etc. They're not peppers. They're a berry chock full of capsicum goodness.

5] The thrilling tales of danger and adventure are exceptionally false. In his own private journals, Columbus talks of seas so calm that they could speak to the other boats with ease across the waters. Also, the natives he encountered were welcoming and friendly and very generous.
Well.. royalty wouldn't be able to smell 'peppers' anyway. Not with their own special, regal stench of the times. Columbus would have been lucky to make it across the Pond in calm seas.

Christopher 'Ellen MacArthur' Columbus

In Australia we some time have the same type of problem. Every Australian knows that Captain Cook was the first person find and chart Australia, but we really know that ther was some Dutch people who did it before him. At least I think they were Dutch

I'm confused. Which group brought the Aborigines with them? :confused:

I don't know about you, but personally, every day is Viking Day.
At least every Thor's day and Fri(d)day :D
And we all are Per's sons...

I always thought of Columbus as a bit of an idiot who struck it lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Wasn't he still labouring under the impression he'd landed in Asia (Japan I think) right up til he died?
I thought that he never actually landed in America itself, just the Bahamas or the WIndies.

As for who discovered it first, Columbus deserves top billing, because his finding changed the world. The Vikings landing and settling in NewFoundland for a dozen years before being chased off by the indignant Natives (circa 1000AD) did nothing towards European or American history, other than add a interesting footnote (another one: I think it was Eric the Red's son who settled there). For me the most important person is the one who had the biggest impact.

At least every Thor's day and Fri(d)day :D
And we all are Per's sons...
Well, by that logic, every July (Julius) and August(us) is Rome month. Hail Caesar!
As for Columbus:
What great man? I see only the actor of his own ideal.
Yes! Nietzsche quotation that's relevant to the topic: Check

Well, by that logic, every July (Julius) and August(us) is Rome month. Hail Caesar!
As for Columbus:
What great man? I see only the actor of his own ideal.
Yes! Nietzsche quotation that's relevant to the topic: Check
That's the first relevant Nietzsche quote I've seen in this forum: Well done! I'm impressed.
Now can you squeeze a Wittgenstein one in somewhere, or am I asking too much? ;)

That's the first relevant Nietzsche quote I've seen in this forum: Well done! I'm impressed.
Now can you squeeze a Wittgenstein one in somewhere, or am I asking too much? ;)
I canna do it, Cap'n. Ah doona haf tha power. (Or something mangled like that from Scotty... ah, another quotation ;) )
As ambivalent as I am about Nietzsche's philosophy, he was one hell of a writer. Open to a random page in one of his works and you'll find something worth quoting. The thing is, people usually just use a couple famous phrases, and they aren't necessarily relevant.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

We need to ask ourselves: just how much clean air do we need?
-Lee Iacoca

I canna do it, Cap'n. Ah doona haf tha power. (Or something mangled like that from Scotty... ah, another quotation ;) )
As ambivalent as I am about Nietzsche's philosophy, he was one hell of a writer. Open to a random page in one of his works and you'll find something worth quoting. The thing is, people usually just use a couple famous phrases, and they aren't necessarily relevant.

I know how you feel. The University I went to had a 1902 copy of 'Thus Spake Zarathustra' available for loan and it was magnificient. Printed on handmade paper, and translated into Shakespeareanesque writing. Truly a beautiful read. I annoyed the hell out of my flatmates and friends quoting them passages from that book. Especially the first half. Second half was prety dismal but he was in the tertiary stages of Syphillis when he wrote it.
A couple of years later, I went in to get it out again and it'd been lent out and never returned (should have been available only for short-term loan).
What annoyed me the most is that was my plan! Borrowing it and then not returning it.

That 'you forgot poland' signature just reminded me...

Okay yes Columbus may or may not have discovered/landed on/freed from the tyranny of its native peoples/thought was outer mongolia/something else, America. However, THAT is done and dusted. Now could someone from the EU please go and discover WALES!!

Totally didn't know the Bush thing with the poland quote. Educate me..