Re: America Discovers Columbus
Originally posted by WillyBWright:<br /> When I look back on his "discovery" of America in his search for India, I realize this guy may be the most successful failure of all time.
Ok, Willy, what they never taught you in public school
Columbas was anything but a failure. He was likely a genius. In any event, he knew exactly what he was doing. Here it is in a nutshell:<br /><br />Portugal was at the apex of maritime navigation. Every Portuguese captain was required to create a map/chart (called a portal) every time they ventured into the big blue, and deposit the portal back into a master repository in Portugal. The Admiral in charge of those portals was none other than the father of Columbus wife. Chris had access to naval chart the rest of the world could only dream of.<br /><br />Jump to Arabia...those folks predicted the size, shape, and location of America eons before but had no way to get there. Their calculations were, the best we can understand today, based on wave patterns hitting the shores of Africa. A similar skill is barely surviving in the Polynesian islands were some elders can look at the water and with an incredible accuracy point in the direction of an island and tell you have far away it is.<br /><br />Anyways, Columbus got a hold of some translations of the Arabian prediction of America. Note: the Arabs used a different, longer unit of measure than Europe. So when Columbus estimated the distance to America, he presented it in the number of Arabian units. But when he supplied the ships, he did so for a journey the distance in traditional units. In other words, he know how far he had to go and the direction he had to go in, but no one would buy into it so Chris deceived them, giving them the distance in a smaller number (of a bigger Arab unit). But he supplied his ships for the actual journey.<br /><br />Chris, an Italian married to the daughter of a Portuguese admiral sails off with the backing of Spain. Why Spain? Because the queen of Spain werent dumb. She was sitting on a thrown surrounded by legions of battle-hardened soldiers that had just finished a 200-year war to push the muslim Moors out of the south of Spain. Aint nothing worse than having a bunch of idle testosterone with experience sitting around sharpening their spearheads and arrows. She decides that if Chris can find the New World she can export all of that potentially lethal (to the thrown) testosterone in the hopes of retaining her crown without the needless civil unrest.<br /><br />It wasn't a failure...it is a success thru study, planning, and managing resources.<br /><br />Bottom line: the Italian was a smart cookie, he knew what he was doing, had access to the best intell, gambled on information of a people he trusted, the Arabs, and it paid off. The queen of Spain funded the venture for political reasons, and reasons of personal safety.
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