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Trump Decides Cristobol Columbus Needs A Reach Around (The World).


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Posted
6 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It’s debatable when the Europeans would have sailed to the Americas again if Columbus didn’t.

 

for some reason, that reminded me of this:
"Well, everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. What this book presupposes is... maybe he didn't." -Eli Cash, The Royal Tenenbaums

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Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, bolverk said:

What the Polynesians did to populate islands across the Pacific with far less developed technology, including Hawaii and several US overseas territories, is a far more impressive feat, imo. European "discovery" of the Americas was pretty much inevitable with the ships they had and navigation tools like compasses, astrolabes, and quadrants.

Let's celebrate these crazy fuckers:

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On our visit to Maui last year, I spent some time diving into this.  Sailing into the vast unknown in primitive boats from (likely) the Marquesas with NO idea what if anything they would find is crazy.

 

Oh, and obligatory...

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Edited by Sbbruin
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Posted
8 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It’s debatable when the Europeans would have sailed to the Americas again if Columbus didn’t.  Columbus miscalculated two things: the circumference of the world (undershot) and the size of Asia (overshot). Had they got the correct numbers (and he was debated at the time while astronomy and calculation was getting better), the idea of a Western passage would have possibly been abandoned. 

They didn’t know another continent was there and would have assumed it was impossible given the technology of the time. Eventually yes but the timeline could have shifted over a century easily.  There was no historical memory of Ericsson. 

 

Yes, and you also have to consider that the industrial revolution depended on rubber, so it might have been even longer.

Posted
2 hours ago, TreatyOak said:

I personally don’t care about the political discussion here either way. As a history lover, I was responding to the posters who are trying to negate his achievements, which were extraordinary for their day, and kicked off a golden age of exploration, because of today’s conventional wisdom.

The Portuguese had already reached and rounded the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian Ocean by then. I'm pretty sure Henry the Navigator kicked off the golden age of exploration, staring out at the vast ocean from Sagres.

25 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It’s debatable when the Europeans would have sailed to the Americas again if Columbus didn’t.  

Cabral reached Brazil in 1500; it would be hard for me to believe that the only reason he did so was due to Columbus' voyage a few years before. Hell, da Gama completed his India voyage in 1498; regardless of Columbus, Portugal would have kept exploring - they had been for a half-century prior, quite lucratively - and due to that almost assuredly the Spanish (and likely the English) crown would have been obliged to do the same.

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Posted
4 hours ago, G650 said:

If he didn't land here some other euro would have stumblefucked his way over at some point. He's just not as consequential as you want him to be.

image.gif.0324c1c0d0664c8644cbd770c7f13ad1.gif

 

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Posted
53 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

t’s debatable when the Europeans would have sailed to the Americas again if Columbus didn’t.

That is an insane sentence and you know it. They were launching people westward like a t shirt cannon at exhibition basketball game.

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Posted
11 minutes ago, flatdawgs said:

The Portuguese had already reached and rounded the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian Ocean by then. I'm pretty sure Henry the Navigator kicked off the golden age of exploration, staring out at the vast ocean from Sagres.

Cabral reached Brazil in 1500; it would be hard for me to believe that the only reason he did so was due to Columbus' voyage a few years before. Hell, da Gama completed his India voyage in 1498; regardless of Columbus, Portugal would have kept exploring - they had been for a half-century prior, quite lucratively - and due to that almost assuredly the Spanish (and likely the English) crown would have been obliged to do the same.

The discovery of the Bulge of Brazil is super historically interesting: Cabral was following ocean currents to ease a voyage that was intended to eventually go east and some think he legitimately wandered too far west and some think the coast had been sighted before. The treaty dividing new lands had already been signed.  Cabral did figure out that he had sailed to a continent and not an island.  They were relatively uninterested in Brazil as a settlement till well into the 16th century.
 

The Portuguese would have been good candidates to find something.  I just don’t know if the Spanish or anyone else would have purposefully sailed west (not intending to loop back towards Africa) if CC hadn’t been so stubborn with his miscalculation. 

Posted
6 minutes ago, G650 said:

That is an insane sentence and you know it. They were launching people westward like a t shirt cannon at exhibition basketball game.

I am unaware of a single documented intentional attempt to reach the Indies via a westward route prior to Columbus. The volta do mar had been figured out but that was always intended to turn east and follow the coast of Africa. Ships were expensive and crews wanted at least a chance to return home.  Not a sarcastic ask: if you know of any voyages pre-Columbus I’d be fascinated to know more. 

Posted
22 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I am unaware of a single documented intentional attempt to reach the Indies via a westward route prior to Columbus. The volta do mar had been figured out but that was always intended to turn east and follow the coast of Africa. Ships were expensive and crews wanted at least a chance to return home.  Not a sarcastic ask: if you know of any voyages pre-Columbus I’d be fascinated to know more. 

I mean, it's an interesting discussion, and I probably came a little hot there, but the thing to realize is that the only reason for all the eastward voyages was no one knew yet exactly how far to the west you would have to go. People did sail west, and had been doing so for quite some time since the Vikings and maybe earlier. The thing Columbus did was sail west specifically to get to the East Indies. Which of course he totally fucked up. Remember everyone knew this pretty quickly after he hit the Caribbean, Magellan went all the way around just a few decades later. And it was all because Spain was racing Portugal to get there faster. Columbus or not they were sending people there as quickly as that could, there absolutely no way America lies undetected for another century if Columbus doesn't show up.

The question isn't really about Pre-Columbian expeditions, but Pre-Columbian contact where it becomes a big question if anyone came before him from Europe. Remember we are talking about this in context of hitting North America, not whether anyone was trying for the East Indies. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, tx 3 putt said:

IMG_5497.jpeg

lol at the notion that that represents the culture encountered. There is lots and lots to criticize the Europeans about but we don’t have to get nonsensical about the culture of pre Colombians. 

Posted
8 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

lol at the notion that that represents the culture encountered. There is lots and lots to criticize the Europeans about but we don’t have to get nonsensical about the culture of pre Colombians. 

eddie murphy GIF

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Posted (edited)
6 hours ago, G650 said:

 

I'm not moving anything, I'm framing what Columbus did in a proper manner. If he didn't land here some other euro would have stumblefucked his way over at some point. He's just not as consequential as you want him to be.

Jerry: De Soto, why De Soto?
George: He discovered the Mississippi.
Jerry: Oh, like they wouldn't have found that anyway.

Edited by Biff Tannen
Godammit Bullneck
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Posted
33 minutes ago, G650 said:

I mean, it's an interesting discussion, and I probably came a little hot there, but the thing to realize is that the only reason for all the eastward voyages was no one knew yet exactly how far to the west you would have to go. People did sail west, and had been doing so for quite some time since the Vikings and maybe earlier. The thing Columbus did was sail west specifically to get to the East Indies. Which of course he totally fucked up. Remember everyone knew this pretty quickly after he hit the Caribbean, Magellan went all the way around just a few decades later. And it was all because Spain was racing Portugal to get there faster. Columbus or not they were sending people there as quickly as that could, there absolutely no way America lies undetected for another century if Columbus doesn't show up.

The question isn't really about Pre-Columbian expeditions, but Pre-Columbian contact where it becomes a big question if anyone came before him from Europe. Remember we are talking about this in context of hitting North America, not whether anyone was trying for the East Indies. 

I think we are kind of talking past each other: I was trying to say that Columbus’ miscalculations of the size of Asia and the size of the world led to him trying to reach the East Indies via a westward route— and this was significant. Both in the attempt and where he landed. 
 

Cabral is interesting— did he really stumble on Brazil by accident or had someone seen/suspected a land mass was there? And what would have been the follow-up had he been first. Would they have followed the coast north or would they have done what they did, which was use Brazil as a source of hardwood and a launch point for a southern route? Hard to say since the Spaniards were already in the Caribbean. Regardless, by the time Magellan was doing his voyage Spain was in the valley of Mexico. The Columbus voyage really did result in a few decades where a lot of history happened. 
 

I don’t dispute at all that Erickson made it to the New World and established a colony. Just that the impact was marginal. Some wild stories from a long-dead Viking culture that was as far away from Columbus in time as we are, if they were known at all. 

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Posted
3 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

I read the diary of Bernal Diaz years ago. He was a soldier of Cortez in Mexico. He discovers the horror of human sacrifice and, I think it's him, casually menitons the Inquisiiton which the Spanish brought to the New World. Diaz was awed by the cities and noted they were bigger, cleaner, and more orderly than any he had seen in Europe. He had no explanation for motives, but he repeats that gold is an honorable objective. 

Such a clash of civilizations. Savagery in both. (Aztecs and Spanish. I don't mean to put all indigenous people in the same pot.) Culture in both.

So much was wiped out. The Spanish destroyed the libraries of the savages. The natives died in droves to disease.

Europe invaded a civilized land, and did all they could to erase every aspect of those civilizations from the earth and memory. 

It’s pretty instructive that basically every Native American identifier for their own tribe is something like “the only real humans” and the names they have for neighboring tribes basically translates to  “total dickhead assholes.” The Parks Service had to change tons of signs all over the Southwest after it became apparent that “Anasazi” meant “ancient savages” in Navajo. 
 

People are pretty much just people everywhere and the most meaningful difference is just access to high explosives. 

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Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

IMG_5497.jpeg


Id like to Saca her gawea and Poca her hantos 

Not to mention she looks like she gives pretty good head.

Edited by Dnaguy
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Posted

Speaking of sailing blind. I read The Fatal Shore a long time ago. Great book about Australia. It's remarkable how many times explorers missed it when they actually had some information about it being there. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, RomaVicta said:

Speaking of sailing blind. I read The Fatal Shore a long time ago. Great book about Australia. It's remarkable how many times explorers missed it when they actually had some information about it being there. 

Well, as someone that used to sail a catamaran, I once got caught up in some strong winds that blew my catamaran way offshore, and I had to paddle back to the Galveston shore. Okay, someone showed up and tugged me most of the way.

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Posted
50 minutes ago, F250 said:

Well, as someone that used to sail a catamaran, I once got caught up in some strong winds that blew my catamaran way offshore, and I had to paddle back to the Galveston shore. Okay, someone showed up and tugged me most of the way.

Something, something, something... "I got a tug in Galveston."

Posted

I bravely sailed today across treacherous Pugent Sound in a ferry to our family island home. The view from the porch is incredible. I have to paint the interior in preparation for (hopefully) selling it. It needs remodeling with a bulldozer. 

image.thumb.jpeg.e3bb9aff5278376fdeda85dfe5679cd7.jpeg

image.thumb.jpeg.a87d0a5bb54dc351d1dfc778ac25fb9b.jpeg

image.thumb.jpeg.970a3e95222ba2674132dc01603595ee.jpeg

Posted (edited)
14 hours ago, bolverk said:

What the Polynesians did to populate islands across the Pacific with far less developed technology, including Hawaii and several US overseas territories, is a far more impressive feat, imo. European "discovery" of the Americas was pretty much inevitable with the ships they had and navigation tools like compasses, astrolabes, and quadrants.

Let's celebrate these crazy fuckers:

undefined

Can I celebrate my drunk ass uncle who navigated Lake Ray Hubbard more than a few times also? 

Edited by Zepol87
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Posted
17 hours ago, bolverk said:

What the Polynesians did to populate islands across the Pacific with far less developed technology, including Hawaii and several US overseas territories, is a far more impressive feat, imo. European "discovery" of the Americas was pretty much inevitable with the ships they had and navigation tools like compasses, astrolabes, and quadrants.

Let's celebrate these crazy fuckers:

undefined

I was going to mention this yesterday, but didn't. 

Polynesian seafarers and explorers were many, MANY magnitudes better at exploring than any European was. There shouldn't be any debate on that. Their ability to traverse an ocean that the rest of the continents could fit into is the most incredible seafaring accomplishment in history. They were doing this with no instruments to guide them nor did they have the ships that Columbus had. What they did have was an absolutely amazing ability to remember their history of exploration through the telling of stories over centuries upon centuries. There is no close 2nd to them, at all. 

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Posted
17 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

Can you recommend some good reading on this? I'm pretty fascinated but know very little. They may have made it to South America. That's a vast bit of ocean with few islands.

This book is really good and I would highly recommend reading it. It will give you an excellent overview of how the Pacific was settled and why that was and is so important. It’s science based and not just conjecture. Micronesian stick charts are talked about as well as how Polynesians could listen to the ocean to find their way is fascinating. The Pacific was like an enormous highway system to them.
 

The Hokulea voyage in 1976 really hammers home just how ridiculously good Polynesians were at ocean voyages. I tell people that while Euros were busy trying to get out of the Mediterranean the Polynesians were settling islands thousands and thousands of miles apart and we know it was them because of linguistics. The languages all shared common characteristics, but were from the same basic language. 

IMG_4607.thumb.jpeg.900d073d314ba0dfc2891d95897429e3.jpeg

 

Posted


This details that Polynesians made their way to the west coast of South America 800 years ago. Not just a theory, but one backed up by DNA evidence. People who were called savages by European sailors as late as the 18th and 19th centuries made landfall using Polynesian methods with no modern equipment. Anyone interested in how the world’s oceans were explored should definitely spend time reading about Polynesian navigators. 

https://www.history.com/articles/polynesian-sailors-americas-columbus

Posted
8 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I think we are kind of talking past each other: I was trying to say that Columbus’ miscalculations of the size of Asia and the size of the world led to him trying to reach the East Indies via a westward route— and this was significant. Both in the attempt and where he landed. 
 

Cabral is interesting— did he really stumble on Brazil by accident or had someone seen/suspected a land mass was there? And what would have been the follow-up had he been first. Would they have followed the coast north or would they have done what they did, which was use Brazil as a source of hardwood and a launch point for a southern route? Hard to say since the Spaniards were already in the Caribbean. Regardless, by the time Magellan was doing his voyage Spain was in the valley of Mexico. The Columbus voyage really did result in a few decades where a lot of history happened. 
 

I don’t dispute at all that Erickson made it to the New World and established a colony. Just that the impact was marginal. Some wild stories from a long-dead Viking culture that was as far away from Columbus in time as we are, if they were known at all. 

 

Yeah I'm sure we are, it's Surly after all. I'm not denying how consequential Columbus running into America was to the modern world, I’m simply denigrating his aptitude. 

 

As far as Cabral being there on purpose or not, you have a bunch of rapacious Euros trying to hoover up every resource imaginable, so to my mind it really was just a matter of time. The monarchs were flinging expeditions in every direction to find whatever they could. And to my point to Treaty Oak, it's literally harder to not sail to the Caribbean than it is to sail there because of the weather patterns, so it was definitely gonna happen. Would be highly interesting to know what he knew (or thought) though.

Posted
9 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

He actually got murdered about 3/4 of the way around. 

 

Indeed. So fun fact, one of my nicknames in high school was Magellan because I have a really good sense of direction. To which i always asked 'are yall motherfuckers trying to stab me enroute?'

Posted
2 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

I was going to mention this yesterday, but didn't. 

Polynesian seafarers and explorers were many, MANY magnitudes better at exploring than any European was. There shouldn't be any debate on that. Their ability to traverse an ocean that the rest of the continents could fit into is the most incredible seafaring accomplishment in history. They were doing this with no instruments to guide them nor did they have the ships that Columbus had. What they did have was an absolutely amazing ability to remember their history of exploration through the telling of stories over centuries upon centuries. There is no close 2nd to them, at all. 

They also have great ties.



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