Dirtbag Columbus

Today is Columbus Day here in the states, and after seeing all the Columbus sales, Columbus this,
Columbus that, I just have to say something. Christopher Columbus was a horrible person that doesn't even deserve to have a federal holiday in his name.

"But he discovered America!" Some will say. No... no he didn't. Columbus set sail to find a trade route to Asia. He never found it though (but if you asked him, he contended until his death that he did). Columbus did not find America on his search for Asia. Rather, he landed in the Bahamas. In all his trips, he also sailed to Santo Domingo, Jamaica, Hati, Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and Venezuela. So tell me... Why does someone who never even set foot on the land that would become America, have an American holiday?

And even if he had landed in America, he still wouldn't deserve a holiday. Why? Columbus' first voyage was in 1492. Between 1499 and 1502, Amerigo Vespucci also sailed to the area now called South America. Unlike Columbus, Vespucci rightly concluded that this land mass was not Asia at all. In fact, America gets his name from Amerigo. Sure, he was a few years after Columbus, but at least he knew what he 'found'.

But more Importantly, there was Leif Ericson. Leif was a Norse explorer that found North America some 500 years before Columbus' first voyage. Leif set landed in North America in the year 1000. But even though he was the first European to set sail for and set foot in the Americas, even he wasn't the first to find this land. That honor falls on Bárdi Herjólfsson. Another Norse who accidentally found North America in 986 when he was blown of course when searching for Greenland. He did

sight land, but did not stop to explore this new land. Instead, it was his story that inspired Leif Ericson to embark on his American journey. So why the hell don't we celebrate Leif Ericson Day, or Herjolfsson Day?

Finally, Columbus doesn't deserve a holiday when you consider his character. In Fourteen-hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. And when he reached land, the natives were screwed. No sooner did he set foot on land, did he start enslaving the natives. And when he wasn't enslaving the natives, he was taking all their gold. When he would return to Spain, he'd load up on gold and slaves. Of course, most of the natives died on the voyage, and most were killed off in their home land as well. When Chris was all done, the lands he visited were left dead and destroyed.

"But he discovered that the Earth was round!" No, no, no, no, no! No one in the 1400's thought that the world was flat. In fact the Greek scholar Eratosthenes not only showed the world to be round, and even circulated it's circumference all the way back in 250 BCE. That's almost 1,750 years before Columbus set sail.

So to recap, Columbus was a horrible person that never set foot in America, was adamant that he found what he obviously didn't find, killed freely, had amazing greed, and didn't prove anything. And to boot, his theft of the natives gold actual kick-started the African slave trade to boot. He did absolutely nothing to earn a US holiday. Yet here we are... So next year, do like me and wish people a happy Leif Ericson Day instead.


-Brain Hulk

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