Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and discovered America after losing his way to India. That may sound ridiculous today, but people actually believed that a century ago. There's a lot of controversy over Columbus Day because it's celebrating the genocide of Native Americans, so we won't be celebrating Columbus in this post.
Instead, I'll talk about the different civilizations around Columbus's time, including the Native Americans. It's a late counter-Columbus Day, if you will.
This is Chapter 12, by the way. We'll get to Chapter 11 soon, don't worry.
So Christopher Columbus was a complicated figure, to say the least. He was certainly not the hero everyone portrayed him to be, but even today, Columbus Day is still celebrated. Still, even if he is a terrible person for enslaving the Native Americans and spreading plagues, he did represent a new era in history: colonialism. On one hand, the United States of America and Australia are successful countries due to colonialism. On the other hand, millions of people had to suffer, especially Native Americans and African people. No wonder America notoriously sugarcoats history (I even heard one of the reasons the Revolutionary War happened was because Britain started banning slaves).
China was going to go out to sea just like Europe, but they mysteriously stopped. Can you imagine what would happen if China colonized the world instead of Great Britain? Chinese, most likely Mandarin, would become the lingua franca, people would be complaining about the brutality of Chinese colonialism, languages would have to convert from their alphabet to Chinese characters often... someone should write a story on that. Though, considering China is becoming a world superpower again, I wouldn't be surprised that became the reality a century from now.
The Byzantine Empire was conquered by a 19-year-old Muslim. He had cannons, the Byzantine Empire had walls, and the Muslims managed to conquer the Byzantine Empire. That was the moment Rome truly fell: when a 19-year-old ruler told his soldiers to fire the cannons. It's the failures like these that make history entertaining, but at the same time, that conquer was brutal.
Finally, the Inca and Aztec Empire had something in common with the United States of America: the rags to riches story. It would go like this: people who lived very remote places quickly got an army together, conquered, and created a massive empire. They were run very differently, but it's amazing to see how developed they were. They even had artificial islands! They made fertile Sealand! I want to see those artificial islands and the crops on them right now.
And that was the post where instead of saying how great Christopher Columbus was, I talked about the complicated nature of colonialism, China giving up on colonialism, the Inca and Aztec Empire, and the Byzantine Empire losing to someone my age. That last one is very inspiring. Maybe I can start my own country... but it would probably be fictional. I can't manage a government very well.
Until next time!
Oh, did you think I was going to have a picture of Christopher Columbus? Nope, artificial islands are much more interesting. Sealand!
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