Myths of Christopher Columbus
We all know the famed Christopher Columbus. The man that “discovered” the Earth was a sphere and “found” America. Find out what most history books don’t tell you about the “greatest” explorer of all time.
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Myth: Christopher Columbus figured out that the earth was round.
Fact: By the end of the 14th century, just about everybody knew that the Earth was a solid sphere. However, what Columbus did want to figure out was how much the circumference of the Earth actually was. Columbus was short by about one-fourth.
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Myth: Queen Isabella auctioned off her priceless gems in order to finance Columbus’ trip.
Fact: Queen Isabella’s advisors suggested that she doesn’t sell her jewels. In fact, the Prefect of Police allowed Columbus to borrow a majority of the money in the fund. This covered most of the first voyages expenses and the rest of the money was given by the treasury. One way to lower that total cost was to force the city of Palos, a city in debt, to provide two ships.
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Myth: It took Christopher Columbus six months to cross the Atlantic before reaching North America.
Fact: It only took Christopher Columbus two months to actually cross the Atlantic. It did indeed take six months from the day he left Spain upon his return. However, for the four months that are ignored in history books, Columbus and his crew stayed in the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa. All they did there is lounge around.
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Myth: The crew was made up of the most dangerous criminals in Spain.
Fact: Actually the crew was composed mainly of trained sailors. Around eighty to ninety percent of these sailors were from the cities of Palos and Moguer in Spain. However, the crown did offer amnesty to criminals that went on the voyage although only four criminals accepted.
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Myth: King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella loved Christopher Columbus.
Fact: The king and queen of Spain hated Columbus. They thought he was a very arrogant man and was very narcissistic. In fact, every military title Columbus wanted, the crown gave it to him, but had no intentions of honoring it.
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Myth: Christopher Columbus first set foot on what is now mainland United States.
Fact: Columbus and his crew had never even seen America. He actually landed on an island in the Bahamas. The island is San Salvador. He traveled throughout the Caribbean but never set foot on Mainland United States soil.
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Myth: Christopher Columbus was a kind man to the natives of the land and never killed one of them.
Fact: Christopher Columbus was a ruthless tyrant among the natives of the Caribbean. All natives were his slaves and were required to work in the gold mines. Each native had a set amount of gold he had to get a day. If this strict requirement was not met, Columbus would have one hand cut off as a reminder to other workers. Many natives died of exhaustion from working in the mines.
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Myth: Columbus died a very poor man in a prison.
Fact: Christopher Columbus actually died a very rich man. Although Columbus was brought back to Spain in chains, the king and queen had them removed. They said it was just a misunderstanding. They did not want to do the man an injustice.
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Post CommentAllen
On August 10, 2008 at 8:19 am
I never knew about alot of this stuff. Very interesting.
Seth
On August 10, 2008 at 8:20 am
Great information!
Dona
On August 10, 2008 at 11:38 am
Very interesting!! Write some more things so I can read more. Good luck!!!
lalalu
On February 24, 2009 at 1:49 pm
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Aishah Bowron
On November 22, 2009 at 2:29 pm
I describe this man Christopher Columbus as the Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy of the 1400s. He is a genocidal mass murderer and the world’s first serial killer he is an evil cold-blooded tyrant who enslaved, killed butchered millions of Indians.
Steve
On September 29, 2010 at 10:41 am
I don’t think there were millions of indians in Americe….just saying
Liz
On October 13, 2010 at 10:56 am
@Steve, the Americas were not devoid of people at all. If you learn all the facts, you’ll see that it was European settlers that killed off (sometimes indirectly, i.e., diseases,) enormous numbers of native tribes. There were millions of Indians in the Americas, before the Europeans and their descendants began cruelly weeding them out.
jered
On December 3, 2010 at 7:02 pm
i believe the current consensus estimate for combined native american populations before being “discovered” by europeans is somewhere around 50 million. the difficulty in establishing an accurate number stems partially from the fact that in many cases, disease spread faster than the europeans and their descendants, and many tribes were almost completely wiped out before any white people were around to document it.