On a day like today in 1492 Cristobal Colón (or Christopher Columbus for the English speakers) discovered an island in the deep Atlantic Ocean (then called the Ocean Sea) and he... got the continent wrong.
Yes, the poor fellow made a mistake, but what do you want? Imagine you're a dreamer Italian sailor (or that's the myth, at least) and you want to travel the world because... well, you're Italian, and we now that Italians have this craving for travels since they get to their teen years. So you try to convince rich people to go around the world (when everybody thinks the world is flat) because you want to travel free (of course).
Then, at last, you get to convince the Spanish queen (you are Italian, she is a woman... you get the picture). So she (not her husband) gives you money and the Enterprise... Errr... sorry... I mean, three ships: La Pinta, La Niña and the Santa María. But you don't have a crew, since everybody thinks your voyage is plain suicide, so you take some criminal and prisoners ("The dirty dozen" was based on this).
And you begin your little expedition. At first everything goes right, you are the Captain, the crew follows you and everybody gets on perfectly well while singing "kumbaya". But after 5 weeks... weeeell... things go tougher... The food is running short, the crew is getting anxious, the Pinzón brothers are shut up in their cabin doing God knows what and there is an obnoxios man called Juan de la Cosa who claims he's the labor union liaison and demands two weeks of holidays.
And when you think you're going to lose your head (literally), the dear Rodrigo de Triana sights land. You drop anchor, go down to the island's beach, kiss the sand repeatedly, kill a few inquisitive natives that were passing by and claim that island, San Salvador (people there called it Guanahani, but who cares), and that land, India, for the Spanish crown.
Admit it, anybody in his situation would make the same mistake
So, yes, that's why the native americans were called indians. Because they thought they were in India so... You were lucky, imagine if Columbus wanted to go to Switzerland.
Anyway, happy October 12th (even if you think Columbus was a twit)
Maybe you should give up on the law and start writing history!
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