He’s pointing to his birthplace, not the Americas.
“I can see my HOUSE from here!!!”
Well, the indigenous Americans didnt have “ships” as we think of them, and even if they had, they wouldnt have colonized Europe.
But yeah, John Cabot would have hit and several others.
Columbus did “discover” America in that he reported back and the knowledge got passed. Sure the Norse ( a better term than “Vikings” since they werent on a raid, per se) found America, and of course there was colonization some 20000 years ago or so.
People love to blame Columbus for all the bad stuff that happened, but the diseases would have happened no matter what- Europe . Columbus was by no means a nice guy, but he was a man of his period. We also have to remember that the Aztecs etc were pretty evil too, what with wars, slavery and mass human sacrifice.
Yep. And the Europeans of that period were not nice people as we think of today. Slavery, disease etc were more or less gonna happen no matter which Euro nation found the America’s first.
Mind you - Columbus was by no means a nice guy.
Well, Amerigo Vespucci was a explorer. He had several voyages, and if his tales are to be believed (and some are rather doubtful), he was the first to land on South America. In any case, it is believed he was the first explorer to realize that the Americas were new Continents. German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in 1507 used “America” to refer to South America. The term took off.
We could always promote DC or PR? 
So glad he kept HIS ego in check.
No, no no! The last line is in King Ferdinand’s Mexican accent, “She ees flat like your ha-id.”
To defend Columbus here, I think there was (a) much more to him than is the silly caricature often presented, where bits of things he wrote are deliberately distorted to sound stupid, and (b) much more favorable then believed to the native people he met in the Americas. He may not have been “nice” and he certain had no modern beliefs - but that if that’s the measure we can look far closer than Columbus. He was brutal in his treatment of Spaniards - precisely because he was concerned for native welfare.
Somebody vandalized a statue of Columbus here in SF over the weekend, and my first thought was, “Wow,* that’ll *show a guy who’s been dead for 500 years.”
This very question is on the Dope’s front page today. Why was America named after Amerigo Vespucci? Apparently, it sounded better than Vespucciland.
How old are you? I’m curious how many years you’ve been pissed off that you got force fed the whitewashed ‘heroic’ portrait of Columbus in elementary school. See, we all got that same story in elementary school. At least pretty much every one in the U.S. public school system got that same story. Most of us, upon further education, learned more about that period and the “truth” and with that new knowledge applied it to our life and moved on. Do you think the time spent being pissed off for (potentially) years is a reasonable reaction?
I’m not a cheerleader for Columbus and I don’t deny or whitewash the actual history. But all the faux outrage on Monday on social media was just absurd. WE ALL KNOW THE REAL STORY NOW AND WE STILL CAN’T CHANGE ANY OF IT! Even my Trump supporting wing-nut in-laws know the real story by now. Quite virtual signaling how “woke” you are Karen! 
And I disagree that we need to be teaching second graders about how our country was founded upon the murder of millions of indigenous people to take their land and to further our white conquest in the name of Protestant God. That’s probably a lesson better saved for a more age appropriate time.
Yes, at least 3rd grade, and get it right too, Columbus was murdering people in the name of the Roman Catholic God.
Catholic - Christopher Columbus.
Protestant - Pilgrams.
Protestant. Roman Catholic. So hard to remember which group of white people were killing in the name of what religion. Haha
In 1492 there were no Protestants, of course. So in this case as to “what group of white people were killing in the name of what religion” would be “Europeans” and “Christianity”, specifically, the Catholic variant which was all that the majority of the population knew.
Understood. I had recently read “Lies My Teacher Told Me” which covers both Columbus as well as the later pilgrims. Just got them mixed up in terms of religious affiliation as I was posting.
No, he was just anxious to get home.
As opposed to what group of "red’ people were killing in the name of religion. Substitute any color you like.
It irks me that the pendulum has swung from “Columbus was the greatest hero explorer ever and we all owe our freedom to his benevolent conquest” to “Columbus was literally Mecha-Hitler and the Original Sin all white people must hereafter atone for”. He’s just this guy, you know?
Also, am I alone in thinking replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day is a slap in the face to Native Americans? I mean, first of all, they ought to get an entire month, at least, and if not, they should at least get their own day, not what amounts to “Anti-Columbus Day”.
Nope