By now, we all know that Christopher Columbus ended up in the New World by accident, a result of mistakes in navigation and lack of knowledge. The result was that the Old World and the New World were brought into contact, for better or for worse, which would have happened eventually anyway. But that's only the first of a string of miscalculations and screwups that led to the way the United States is today. Some of these mistakes were the result of hubris, while others were just incompetence or stupidity. Then again, some of these movers and shakers were confronting problems never seen before. These eight historic mistakes are not presented in chronological order, but you can place them easily is you know anything about American history.
The earth was known to be round a couple thousand years ago. I think it was Euclid measured it by finding a spot in Egypt where the sun was directly overhead at noon, and measuring its angle in the sky at the same time a known distance away, and used trigonometry to calculate the earth's circumference at roughly 25,000 miles.
ReplyDeleteThis was one of many facts forgotten in the Dark Ages.
Columbus was right about the shape of the earth, but wrong about its size. He was actually looking for a new trade route to India, and figured it wouldn't take any longer than going around Africa, and never considered the possibility that there might be another continent in the way. And when he made landfall on what we now call Hispaniola, he was ignorant enough to believe he'd made it to India (I suppose it was at the right latitude), so he referred to the people he met as "Indians"-- and unfortunately the name stuck.
When Europeans got to the Americas none of the natives spoke Italian, Spanish, or English, so the newcomers had to name everything new to them. All the plants, animals, and peoples had to be named in order to talk about these new things and write home about them. Whether they called the natives Indians or Bippityboos makes no difference, it was just a tag so the Europeans would know what someone was referring to.
ReplyDeleteActually the natives talking to each other about themselves were using a tag they made up for the same reasons.
xoxoxoBruce