Happy Columbus Day!

[Josiah]

Um..... LOVE this detour..... but we DO have a topic here. It's COLUMBUS DAY!

Maybe we could continue this in the Food Forum??? Where I'd love to tell a story or two from my travels abroad and food "surprises"

 

[Confessional Lutheran]

Um..... LOVE this detour..... but we DO have a topic here. It's COLUMBUS DAY!

Maybe we could continue this in the Food Forum??? Where I'd love to tell a story or two from my travels abroad and food "surprises"

Christopher Columbus was a primary reason that we had the trans- Atlantic food exchange, but I did start a thread regarding international food. I started a thread about the Age of Discovery elsewhere.. I'm wondering if the Columbian Exchange could just be subsumed as part of that, or if it deserves its own thread.

 

[Stravinsk]

When I was a kid, Columbus Day was regarded as a holiday for someone who heroically braved a vast, unknown sea to find a western passage to China and the Orient. Unbeknownst to him and the three ships he was leading ( Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria), when they first sighted land, it was land in a hitherto unknown ( except for its inhabitants and the Icelanders) New World.

Christopher Columbus opened the way to an intercontinental Empire not only for the Kingdom of Spain, but also for Portugal, France, the Netherlands and ( last but far from least) Great Britain. He was known as being a rather brutal dictator who enslaved the indigenous nations he encountered in the Caribbean and he's also known for introducing all manner of New World produce to the Old World.

Today, the gentleman is rather more well known for his negatives than his positives, but I, personally, was raised with the positives. To those who, like me, think of this holiday ( traditionally October 12, but held today, for some reason) as a celebration of discovery rather than homage paid to a madman, I wish a Happy Columbus Day!

I got that same education.

The irony of the traditional story is that the same folk who say Columbus "discovered the 'New' World" also often say that in doing so he proved the earth is a great giant sphere. People seem to miss the contradiction in the terms "discovered" and "new world" - for as there were already people there - he neither discovered it, nor was it new to humanity. Also - plotting a course to India from Europe and completely botching it doesn't prove we live on a giant rotating ball in outer space.

 

[MoreCoffee]

But we do in fact live on the surface of a spherical planet orbiting a spherical sun and we have a spherical moon orbiting the earth on which we live.

 

[Albion]

Oh sure, but I'm certain that Copernicus did some questionable things in his life, so he's likely just a "mass murderer" to the usual Hollywood and Antifa crowd. What's more, the solar system must surely have caused slavery, world war, and economic injustice.

 

[Lamb]

My husband has Italian blood in him and belongs to an Italian American lodge where they're trying to preserve Columbus Day for their heritage.

 

[Albion]

Glad to hear it!

 

[MoreCoffee]

Why have a "discovery day" anyway?

The USA could have a "reunion day" to celebrate the end of the civil war. That would be better

 

[Albion]

I think that would be better, yes, but this term "Discovery Day" is really unfamiliar. It's always called Columbus Day, and that is to honor the man and what he did, but not as an anniversary of the discovery per se. Of course, he landed in the Bahamas and there are plenty of people who give the honor of having discovered America to Leif Erickson instead. Still, Columbus--who almost was made a saint in the RCC--did change history. The Vikings did not make anything of their settlement in what is now Canada.