56 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2024
  2. Nov 2023
    1. This myth is mostly the blame of the novelist Washington Irving
      • for: Washington Irving, book - the History of New York, book - A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus

      • comment

        • Irving was a American writer who wrote fiction for the intent of stoking nationalism. He bent the truth in many ways.
        • Among his most famous and impactful historical lies that Irving fabricated in his book on Columbus was that prior to Columbus, the majority of educated people thought the earth was flat. In fact, most educated people believed the earth to be round during the time of Columbus.
      • interesting fact: knickerbocker

        • The term knickerbocker originated in the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker that Irving chose for his book "A History of New York"
  3. Oct 2023
    1. Hayton, Darin. “Washington Irving’s Columbus and the Flat Earth.” History of Science blog. Darin Hayton, December 2, 2014. https://dhayton.haverford.edu/blog/2014/12/02/washington-irvings-columbus-and-the-flat-earth/.

    2. the Columbus myth is alive and well in the United States

      the author cites examples of modern references including: - Lawrence Krauss (cosmologist) # - President Barak Obama # - Chris Impey, astronomer #, #

    3. By the time Andrew White wrote his A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896) (online here), Columbus’s struggles to overcome a medieval Church that believed in a flat earth had become historical fact.
    4. By the latter 19th-century, the supposed truth of the Columbus story had completely replaced the historical truths. In works like John Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874) (online here) we read nothing of the reasoned objections raised by the Council at Salamanca or of Columbus’s errors. Instead we learn that his proposal’s irreligious tendency was pointed out by the Spanish ecclesiastics, and condemned by the Council of Salamanca; its orthodoxy was confuted from the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Prophecies, the Gospels, the Epistles, and the writings of the Fathers—St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Gregory, St. Basil, St Ambrose.
    5. The seeds of the Columbus myth seem to grow from Washington Irving’s biography of Columbus, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828) (online here). Alexander Everett, Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain, had invited Irving to Madrid in the hopes that Irving would translate a recently published collection of documents on Columbus.

      Source of the Columbus/Flat Earth portion of the bunk theory.

  4. Sep 2023
  5. Jul 2023
    1. Few who march in Columbus Day parades or recount the tale of Columbus’s voyage from Europe to the New World are aware of how the holiday came about or that President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed it as a one-time national celebration in 1892 — in the wake of a bloody New Orleans lynching that took the lives of 11 Italian immigrants. The proclamation was part of a broader attempt to quiet outrage among Italian-Americans, and a diplomatic blowup over the murders that brought Italy and the United States to the brink of war.

      Origin of Columbus day is to respond to anti-Italian racism.

  6. May 2023
    1. The decision doesn’t change things.  Consistent with its mission, the Foundation operates in a transparent fashion and will continue to do so," said its spokeswoman, Connie Luck, in a written statement.

      ...by continuing to bar people from public meetings or respond to open records requests?!?

  7. Nov 2022
    1. the belief that citizens should have the right to come together to decide what’s best for their community

      What Klein overlooks is the Just Powers Clause in The Declaration of Independence.

      It explains that people may only justly delegate powers to Gov that they actually have.

      So one cannot, as in this case, "come together and decide" to infringe on the individual right to keep and bear arms because none of the individuals in Columbus have that power as an individual.

      They can't justly delegate this power to Gov because they don't have the power themselves.

  8. Jul 2022
    1. Like other informed people of his time, Columbus knew that theworld was round.

      Were there uninformed people of his time who didn't think the world was round?

      The myth about the flat world was primarily an invention of Washington Irving. Good to see him tangentially deflating this myth here.

    2. They would make ne servants.... With ftymen we could subjugate [overpower] them and make them do whatever we want.

      How is it that Columbus jumps so quickly to subjugation upon meeting new peoples?

    1. drive to the closest police station

      ...but there is nobody at the police station. 🤷‍♂️

    2. Albert said with Ohio’s permitless carry law, people should now assume that someone could have a firearm in their vehicles.

      Ohioans could openly carry for years, and CCW has been the law of the land since 2003... but you should NOW assume they have a firearm. 🙄

  9. Mar 2022
  10. Feb 2022
    1. a new alliance

      I've lost track of the number of times Mayor Andrew Ginther has spun up "a new alliance" of "faith leaders, city leaders, and medica professionals" and called upon "everyone" to fight the crime problem he's done nothing to address - as did his predecessors.

  11. Sep 2021
    1. 99% and 1% theme exists here as a theme years before it became mainstream.

      The Greeks had accurate measurements of the world, but Columbus' was off significantly.. He likely created a post hoc reasoning for this.

      Alfred W. Crosby.'s The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (1972) was published a few years before Zinn's work, so the effects of disease are likely under reported here.

      Excuse of progress for the annihilation of indigenous societies.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzQzdWZtpm0&t=7s

  12. Dec 2019
    1. America would have been discovered more gradually

      From 1492 to 1504, Christopher Columbus made four voyages to the Americas and Spanish colonizing of what is now South America extended from 1494 to the 1600s. By "gradually," however, Shelley mody likely means that the Americas could have been "discovered" without imperial violence if Europeans had observed and valued domestic affections over military adventure.

  13. Jan 2016
    1. Columbus described them as innocents. “They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor the sins of murder or theft,” he reported to the Spanish crown. “Your highness may believe that in all the world there can be no better people … They love their neighbors as themselves, and their speech is the sweetest and gentlest in the world, and always with a smile.”

      Knowing the outcome, this quote looks much less like Columbus is holding the Arawaks in high regard, but more so confirming what Columbus later reports that "they can all be subjugated and made to do what is required of them".

  14. Sep 2015
    1. extreme of blackness

      what is "extreme blackness" to him? he's lived his whole life with pretty much whit europeans

    2. that I have come to another conclusion respecting the Earth

      what authority does he have to say this? I mean, come on.

    1. the inhabitants on discovering us abandoned their houses, and took to flight, carrying of their goods to the mountain.

      smart people!

    2. penetrate

      not a good enough reason to use the word "penetrate"

    3. This is so beautiful a place

      he repeatedly mentions the beauty of the place, but refuses to just appreciate the beauty of the land and its people for what they are. he has to take it, own it, and change it.

    4. The Indians on board the ships called this island Saomete. I named it Isabela.

      completely disrespects the name that the Natives have given the island

    5. seemed to take great pleasure in serving us.

      because they don't know how evil they are yet

    6. It appeared to them that we were honest people

      appearances can be deceiving!

    7. where I gave it the name of Santa Maria de la Concepcion

      okay, so he's just making up his own names for places

    8. San Salvador

      from where? did he just make up a Spanish name for the places he is "discovering"?

    9. I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased.

      Wow...bold statement.

    10. if they had any gold

      greedy

    11. wrought in a wonderful manner considering the country

      already speaking as if he is above/better than the native people

    12. and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion

      how does he gather all this information? just by looking at them?

    13. Weapons they have none

      none that you know of. no European weapons.

    14. coarse like that of a horse’s tail

      already comparing them to animals

    15. that he before all others took possession (as in fact he did) of that island for the King and Queen his sovereigns, making the requisite declarations, which are more at large set down here in writing.

      he claims the piece of land before even stepping foot on said land? hmm...

    16. At two o’clock in the morning the land was discovered, at two leagues’ distance;

      finally!

    17. a piece of cane

      sugar cane?

    18. for the Admiral had given orders to that effect.

      so much lying about seeing land! or are they hallucinating?

    19. the needles

      by needles he means compass, right?

    20. Those on board the Nina ascended the rigging, and all declared they saw land. The Admiral also thought it was land,

      the power of suggestion!

    21. demanded of the Admiral a reward for his intelligence.

      seems a bit greedy...

    22. Part of the day saw no weeds, afterwards great plenty of it.

      exciting!

    23. Saw a whale, an indication of land, as they always keep near the coast.

      Do whales keep to the coast?

    24. Here the pilots found their places upon the chart: the reckoning of the Nina made her four hundred and forty leagues distant from the Canaries, that of the Pinta four hundred and twenty, that of the Admiral four hundred.

      how are the three ships communicating with each other if they are this far apart?

    25. the seamen were terrified

      why?

    26. saw a large fragment of the mast of a vessel

      that can't be a good sign

    27. that the crew might not be dismayed if the voyage should prove long.

      did they not know that the plan was to sail around the world before departing?

    28. which he affirmed he saw every year, and always of the same appearance

      well yeah...land doesn't move(at least not very quickly)

    29. perpetual Viceroy and Governor in all the islands and continents which I might discover and acquire, or which may hereafter he discovered and acquired in the ocean; and that this dignity should be inherited by my eldest son, and thus descend from degree to degree forever

      that's a lot of power...could go to someone's head...

    30. countries of India

      that's what you think!

    31. the holy Father had never granted his request, whereby great numbers of people were lost, believing in idolatry and doctrines of perdition

      conflicts over religion led to many deaths of those who weren't followers of the "right" religion

  15. Aug 2015
    1. The Indian population collapsed. Within a few generations a whole island had been depopulated and a whole people exterminated.

      Utter destruction.

    2. But Columbus underestimated the size of the globe by a full two-thirds and therefore believed it was possible.

      So was Columbus's success due to luck or not knowing?