ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY.

Christopher Columbus thinking thinky thoughts

On this day in 1492, Christopher Columbus made his first landing in the Americas on San Salvador Island. “The natives,” he wrote back to his sponsors Isabella and Ferdinand, “are intelligent, sweet-tempered, gentle, and peaceful. They would make great slaves. How many would your majesties like?” Columbus himself took a few of the people to paste in his album, and the light of European civilization shone brightly in America for the first time.

Comments

  1. Occasional Correspondent says:

    I have read that, several years ago, they cracked open the actual original logs of Columbus (which had been under lock and key for a few centuries) and discovered that the sighting of land was, not Oct.12th, but Oct.13th.  Upon return to Spain, the various clerks and ministers declared the 13th to be an inauspicious day and in all official [ie secondhand] accounts it was backdated it to the 12th.  It was triskaidekaphobia’s finest hour; and you can ask the Indians whether it was an inauspicious day or not, they might have an opinion on the matter.

  2. Occasional Correspondent says:

    And furthermore . . .

    In Spain, the Gregorian calendar didn’t come into use until 1582, so there are Old-Style/New-Style shenanigans going on too.

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