# Columbus and the Indies **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 11, 2008, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbus-and-the-indies/472218 "2008-11-11T18:38:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![PopeJewish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@PopeJewish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PopeJewish)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbus-and-the-indies/472218/41 "2008-11-13T00:53:04Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > Try again. > > Gosh, I can’t believe someone would not know the exact date; much less someone participating in this thread. It has more to do with not caring, honestly. I haven’t had to memorize dates since high school, no one at University cared about things like that, as they were easily looked up in books (oct 12, 1492) We concentrated more on what the person actually did and the historiography (how it is remembered/taught), prime example being the difference between how the Japanese remember the Nanjing “incident” and how the rest of the world remembers the Nanjing “massacre” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbus-and-the-indies/472218/42 "2008-11-13T23:41:04Z")
> [@](#): > > What counts is that he did the feat and thus opened the door to everything that came afterwards. Some Basques or Vikings probably set foot on American soil before he did but this did not have the same consequences. I always said that Columbus’ biggest contribution to history was that when he discovered America it stayed discovered. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbus-and-the-indies/472218.md?page=2)