Akshay Kumar

Minor point, that typo should have been ‘at least 250 years ….’

Lately it has become fashionable to belittle Christopher Columbus’ achievement, starting with the Vikings discovered the N. American continent before Columbus – unfortunately for them, they did nothing with their discovery, neither publicizing it nor making something of it by further immigration by more Vikings. Yes I know they don’t seem to have been able to make it back home. We have had people claiming to have flown before the Wright Brothers in airplanes but unfortunately for them, there is no official record of that fact, just hearsay. The Wrights had newspaper photos as proof. So if one makes a discovery then some proof for the public, then and in the future, is required.

Anyway, what was the reason to beliitle Columbus thus? We have ‘stumbled’, ‘outskirts’ (as if not venturing inland somehow lessened his find), ‘already populated’ (well when the Indians came here it was already populated by others too but somehow critics of CC fail to mention that), and lastly ‘failed attempt’ – all negative descriptors. The author forgot one more negative: he could have said that CC didn’t stumble on mainland N. America, he went ashore on a small island in the now West Indies.

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