Lost_Warrior Posted October 10, 2006 Report Share Posted October 10, 2006 Hmmm. Maybe we Italian Americans can come up with a better namesake for a holiday in our honor. Why not a day named for Garibaldi or another of the heroes of the Risorgimento, the struggle to unite Italy. I agree. I'm not sure why we're celebrating the guy who "discovered" america (when he didn't discover it at all because there were already people living here) by getting LOST. Lol. He thought he was in india Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted October 10, 2006 Report Share Posted October 10, 2006 Hmmm. Maybe we Italian Americans can come up with a better namesake for a holiday in our honor. Why not a day named for Garibaldi or another of the heroes of the Risorgimento, the struggle to unite Italy. I agree. I'm not sure why we're celebrating the guy who "discovered" america (when he didn't discover it at all because there were already people living here) by getting LOST. Lol. He thought he was in india Quite simple: We all celebrate and become Irish on a day that "celebrates" a missionary who came to Ireland and whose deeds are more legend than fact. We all celebrate and become Mexican on a day that was a very minor battle, and isn't even Mexican Independence Day (that's Sept. 16th). So why not celebrate and become Italian on a day that "celebrates" when a Genovese, with Catalan ships and Spanish money, stumbled across the wrong islands? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ursus Posted October 10, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2006 Do we all pretend to be African-Americans on Kwanzaa? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Porcius Cato Posted October 10, 2006 Report Share Posted October 10, 2006 I'm not sure why we're celebrating the guy who "discovered" america (when he didn't discover it at all because there were already people living here) by getting LOST. Lol. He thought he was in india This argument never ceases to astonish me. Whether there were already people in the Americas and whether Columbus knew how far from India he was is completely irrelevant to Columbus' achievement--which was to discover a new population of people (an anthropological discovery), a new sea route (a navigational discovery), and the existence and relations among previously uncharted land masses (a cartographical discovery). Before Columbus, no one had ever tried an exploratory sea voyage of such audacity, nor was any previous exploration so far reaching in its consequences. And these consequences obtained because Columbus RECORDED where he was going. That's what made Columbus' discovery of the Americas different from all the previous landings in the Americas, and it's what made it more consequential than any of the previous ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pantagathus Posted October 10, 2006 Report Share Posted October 10, 2006 Couldn't have said it better myself M.P.C! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viggen Posted October 10, 2006 Report Share Posted October 10, 2006 Of course MPC you are right, however "Vikings Day" sounds so much better and i am sure most of Minnesota would agree cheers viggen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rameses the Great Posted October 10, 2006 Report Share Posted October 10, 2006 Of course MPC you are right, however "Vikings Day" sounds so much better and i am sure most of Minnesota would agree cheers viggen You can just about do it all when you hit on all cylinders Viggen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLavius Valerius Constantinus Posted October 10, 2006 Report Share Posted October 10, 2006 Funny, there was a Discovery Channel documentary that suggested that Columbus was most likely from Catalonia due to his handwriting and grammatical style, not from Genoa. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Favonius Cornelius Posted October 10, 2006 Report Share Posted October 10, 2006 It's hard to celebrate someone who directly led to the passive or active genocide of American Indians north to south. I know the man did not have those intentions, but I find quaint holidays like Thanksgiving and Columbus Day detract to the very real human travesty of so many Indian dead. It puts anything Julius Caesar did to shame! I hope I don't come off sounding like a tree huggin liberal or whatever, but take a moment to think about the sheer scale of it, anthropomorphically or numerically. Why not reward holidays to real heroes, like scientists for a change. I know of no Louis Pasteur day, I could not begin to count how many millions of lives his discoveries has saved to this day. Or Einstein day, who though also has led to the discovery of nuclear weapons technology, without whom the world future of energy production would be bleak indeed. In my opinion, there are many other people vastly more deserving of a holiday than someone who was not really even the first, nor had it right the first time. Columbus is just another notable footnote in history. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludovicus Posted October 10, 2006 Report Share Posted October 10, 2006 (edited) I'm not sure why we're celebrating the guy who "discovered" america (when he didn't discover it at all because there were already people living here) by getting LOST. Lol. He thought he was in india This argument never ceases to astonish me. Whether there were already people in the Americas and whether Columbus knew how far from India he was is completely irrelevant to Columbus' achievement--which was to discover a new population of people (an anthropological discovery), a new sea route (a navigational discovery), and the existence and relations among previously uncharted land masses (a cartographical discovery). Before Columbus, no one had ever tried an exploratory sea voyage of such audacity, nor was any previous exploration so far reaching in its consequences. And these consequences obtained because Columbus RECORDED where he was going. That's what made Columbus' discovery of the Americas different from all the previous landings in the Americas, and it's what made it more consequential than any of the previous ones. I don't disagree with any of these achievements on the part of Columbus. I just don't understand the why his day is put forward as a holiday for Italian Americans. I've read his diaries in the original Spanish. Did he ever write in Italian? Do you see my problem with him? He enriched the Spanish, Portuguese, and other European powers with new empires but what did he do for Italy? Edited October 10, 2006 by Ludovicus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Porcius Cato Posted October 11, 2006 Report Share Posted October 11, 2006 I find quaint holidays like Thanksgiving and Columbus Day detract to the very real human travesty of so many Indian dead. It puts anything Julius Caesar did to shame! As you mentioned, Columbus was unaware of the disease vectors that he brought to (and from) the New World, so I'd hardly say that Columbus put Caesar to shame. Presumably Caesar knew that sticking cold hard steel into Gallic intestines would harm them... Why not reward holidays to real heroes, like scientists for a change. I know of no Louis Pasteur day, I could not begin to count how many millions of lives his discoveries has saved to this day. Or Einstein day, who though also has led to the discovery of nuclear weapons technology, without whom the world future of energy production would be bleak indeed. Sounds right to me. Newton, Pasteur, Darwin, Edison, Ford, Einstein, Watson and Crick--so many heroes of science and technology that deserve much greater recognition. Why, among all the great British men of the past, we Americans choose to honor those theocratic Puritans in Massachusetts is beyond me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virgil61 Posted October 11, 2006 Report Share Posted October 11, 2006 I don't disagree with any of these achievements on the part of Columbus. I just don't understand the why his day is put forward as a holiday for Italian Americans. I've read his diaries in the original Spanish. Did he ever write in Italian? Do you see my problem with him? He enriched the Spanish, Portuguese, and other European powers with new empires but what did he do for Italy? Read up on the history of Italian immigration to America. Around the 20's and 30's Italians made up just under 10% of the population and there was concern about their 'foreigness' and ability to assimilate amongst other things. Columbus was Italian,or at least the CW of the day thought so, and an indication of the importance Italians held in American history and hence a source of pride to new immigrants. Not that difficult to fathom really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primus Pilus Posted October 11, 2006 Report Share Posted October 11, 2006 Of course MPC you are right, however "Vikings Day" sounds so much better and i am sure most of Minnesota would agree cheers viggen Columbus opened the exploration and expansion of a 2 new continents to the entirety of Europe and proved that cross Atlantic journeys were feasable. The Vikings hardly left any record at all. Despite their cultural achievement of exploring and even temporarily settling the American continental north east, the exploration was not widely known and had no bearing on the eventual European colonialism. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ursus Posted October 11, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 11, 2006 They could make a Paris Hilton day for all I care, as long as it considered leave with pay. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DecimusCaesar Posted October 11, 2006 Report Share Posted October 11, 2006 Wasn't there such a thing as 'Hanson' day to celebrate those long blond haired musicians who wrote 'Mmm...Bop' ? At least in their home state or city... If you can have that, then I don't see why you can't have Paris Hilton Day Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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