Democrats SUCK!!

[Locutus]

Events that just aren't there any longer. have been removed, for cross checking, events that have changed from what really happened, meanings of certain words.  You know, the insignificant things that could make a difference at some point in what you think and whose "opinion" or "fact"  you chose to go with.   

Then please cite some specific examples of things that have been 'altered,' and we'll all be more than happy to research them with you.  So far when you've gone down this path, you've been woefully short on facts. 

There's a library right around the corner from the house.  I can be there in two minutes. 

[Locutus]

Oh ... like the 'fact' that Columbus "discovered" America?

I'm starting to think you're right.

She is ....

 

[me]

Oh ... like the 'fact' that Columbus "discovered" America?

No, in all actuality he did not Amerigo Vespucci did.  Although Columbus was here first he thought he was in Asia and Vespucci is the one who realized it was not Asia which is why it is north and south America and not north and south Columbus, it is named after Vespucci.

[Bo D]

No, in all actuality he did not Amerigo Vespucci did.  Although Columbus was here first he thought he was in Asia and Vespucci is the one who realized it was not Asia which is why it is north and south America and not north and south Columbus, it is named after Vespucci.

Wrong again!

The Vikings were here long before that. If you want to be absolutely correct, America was discovered more than 20,000 years ago by Asians.

So much for your research/comprehension skills. 

[me]

Wrong again!

The Vikings were here long before that. If you want to be absolutely correct, America was discovered more than 20,000 years ago by Asians.

So much for your research/comprehension skills. 

They didn't land here but were just the first to make it out and it was 500yrs, not 20,000, before Columbus or Vespucci

[Bo D]

They didn't land here but were just the first to make it out and it was 500yrs, not 20,000, before Columbus or Vespucci

Here's a page from a children's book. Maybe you can understand it. It has pictures.

http://www.teachervision.fen.com/tv/printables/botr/botr_009_6-7.pdf

[Locutus]

Here's a page from a children's book. Maybe you can understand it. It has pictures.

http://www.teachervision.fen.com/tv/printables/botr/botr_009_6-7.pdf

Doesn't get much simpler than that, does it?   

[me]

http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-Did-Vikings-Discover-America-49891.shtml

How Did The Vikings Discover America?

Who discovered America? When Columbus returned from the Antilles in 1493, he was not the first European to have stepped in the New World.

It seems that, 500 years before, a group of blond Scandinavians had done it. It happened during the Viking era, when these sailors and warriors were roaming northern Africa, eastern Europe and the Middle East.

In 986, Bjarni Herjolfsson, experimented navigator and adventurer, left Norway to reach Iceland close to the winter. He found that his father had left as part of a fleet led by Erik the Red to colonize a huge land situated to the West and attractively named "Greenland."

So, he set out to Greenland, but he lost his way due to the wind and fog for many days. When he finally spotted land, it was very different from the description of Greenland: it was a land of hills and mighty forests. But, after a few days, the landscape turned more mountainous and glacial and, departing to the East, he found Greenland and Erik's colony.

These people did not land in North America, but they were the first to make it out. One of Erik's sons got very interested in the story told by Bjarni, especially as, in the frozen Greenland, wood was hard to come by, while Bjarni was telling of a forested country.
Around 1000, Leif Eriksson took Bjarni's boat and, together with 35 men, left in search of the land spotted by him.

Leif first met the Baffin Island (in today's northeastern Canada), covered by glaciers and without pastures. Going southwards, they found a forested plain, with beaches of white sand they named Marklandia (The Forested Land), in today's Labrador. A few days later, the Vikings found an even better territory.

They built houses there and wintered in that territory. One man discovered vines and the land was named Vinlandia (The Wine Land). In spring, they returned to Greenland with the cellars filled with products from the area.

Reconstruction of viking houses in L'Anse Aux Meadows
Enlarge picture
Until today, all these lands have remained a mystery. In the 60s and 70s, in the surroundings of the L'Anse Aux Meadows village (Newfoundland), archaeologists found the ruins of some houses with distinguishable northern features, like an iron founding oven and other objects dated from the year 1000.

In the 90s, a Danish researcher found in southern Newfoundland a well-polished stone piece coming from a Viking craft. Leif recounted his journey to the Norwegian king.

In 1070, the German historian Adam of Bremen traveled to Denmark to collect information about northern countries, and the Danish king Sweyn told him about Vinlandia and its excellent wine.

Viking colons
Enlarge picture
Through the Chronicle of Bremen, many erudite people learned about the western lands. The Icelandic chronicles from the XII-XIV centuries mention other journeys made from Greenland to Markland and Vinlandia. It is possible that Columbus knew about all this, and some say he visited Iceland before his journeys to the Americas.

The puzzle that remains to be solved is why the Vikings didn't remain definitively in America. Maybe they tried to, but were unsuccessful, due to the difficult conditions and the "skraelings" (Native Americans), whose forces were superior to theirs.

The houses at L'Anse Aux Meadows harbored no more than 500 people, and this number was enough for an uninhabited zone, not for one where they had to face Indians. How could they face an Iroquois unit, when French and British troops, armed with fire guns, had problems with them 700-800 years later?

On the other hand, the Greenland colony faced huge problems: the climate got colder (the Medieval "Little Ice Age"), the colons could no longer make agriculture and sustain themselves and they completely vanished: the last sign of them dates back to a wedding from 1408.

[Bo D]

Doesn't get much simpler than that, does it?   

Evidently it will have to get simpler before 'me' can understand that ASIANS DISCOVERED AMERICA 20,000 YEARS AGO.

[Locutus]

Evidently it will have to get simpler before 'me' can understand that ASIANS DISCOVERED AMERICA 20,000 YEARS AGO.

Maybe these will help.   

[me]

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/mysteries/columbus.htm


From the 7/24/00 issue of USN&WR

A leaf from Leif
Columbus might have been a Viking disciple

BY BRUCE B. AUSTER

Pirates attacked Columbus's ship west of Gibraltar, as he headed north to England. The young Italian crewman, his vessel ablaze, gripped an oar to keep from drowning and swam to shore. He caught the next ship to the end of the Earth.

Fifteen years before his mission to the New World, the story goes, Columbus reached Iceland, the land known in legend as Ultima Thule, the farthest possible place in the world, where "land, water, and air are all mixed together." The mysterious island boasted volcanoes, lava-black beaches, and snowy white landscapes. It may also have been the birthplace of Columbus's bold leap to America. Historians continue to search for new documentation to prove that Columbus reached Iceland and, if he did, whether his stay there, at age 25, stirred the adventurer to imagine that a passage to China lay to the west, across the Atlantic.

Some 500 years earlier, the Vikings had set sail from Iceland and ultimately reached the New World. Could Columbus have heard the stories of Leif Ericson's voyage to the place called Vinland? If the story is true, "Columbus would have learned from Icelandic sailors that there was land to the west," says William Fitzhugh, a curator of the Smithsonian Institution's exhibit "Vikings," which opened in April in Washington and will travel for two years throughout North America.

We're No.1. It is no coincidence that historians in Scandinavia are cheerleaders for the Columbus-in-Iceland saga while those in Italy turn up their noses. If the Viking backers are right, Columbus not only arrived in America after the Vikings, he borrowed their idea. The Vikings did beat Columbus to America, an accomplishment no longer in dispute. Forty years ago, archaeologists discovered evidence of a Viking set­ tlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, in Newfoundland. No other Viking sites have been found despite exhaustive, and sometimes ridiculous, efforts. But the ruins of buildings discovered at L'Anse aux Meadows confirmed the essential details of the Vinland Sagas, the two oral tales that describe the journeys of Eric the Red to Greenland and Leif Ericson and others to North America.

Scholars cannot be sure Columbus even reached Iceland. The case isn't ironclad because only one fragment of evidence from Columbus's day remains: The explorer's son, in his biography of his father, cites Columbus's memoirs, in which he describes the voyage of February 1477. For years, historians did not know what to make of the account. Many details were accurate: The winter that year was mild, so waters in the north were navigable. Others were wrong: Columbus badly misstates Iceland's latitude. But the errors, because they reflect the limited knowledge of the time, are now seen as proof of the memoir's authenticity. In 1484, just seven years after he is believed to have stopped in Iceland, Columbus proposed to the king of Portugal that he could reach China by crossing the Atlantic.

Small world. No single spark lighted the explorer's imagination. Before his voyage, Columbus would have known of Marco Polo's journey to China. He is also believed to have studied Ptolemy's Guide to Geography, a brilliant Roman-era work by the Greek astronomer who argued that the sun revolved around the Earth. His Geography, though influential, vastly underestimated the size of the Earth. That led Colum­ bus to believe a shorter route to China and India could be found to the west. Ptolemy's teachings may have only confirmed what he knew from the Viking sagas: that a westward passage was possible.

That Columbus wasn't first to America is unthinkable to many. Ken Feder, debunker and author of Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries, gets the most hate mail from Columbus lovers. "I expect psychic archaeologists to get on my case, not the Columbus appreciation society," he says. Others suggest the Viking discovery had no lasting importance. "It is unquestionable that the Vikings got there first, if getting there is all that matters," says historian David Henige, who analyzed the journal of Columbus's first voyage. "But Columbus catalyzed settlement of the New World." Might the Vikings have the jump there, too? New evidence being gathered by archaeologists may prove that the Vikings maintained elaborate trade relations with native North Americans for some 350 years. "If the Norse were huddling in Greenland trying to survive, that's one thing,'' says the Smithsonian's Fitzhugh. "But if they were exploring, meeting natives, and trading, then that's a new chapter in American history that hasn't been explored."

Paolo Emilio Taviani entitled his biography of Columbus The Grand Design. But the adventures of Columbus and the Vikings, five centuries apart, suggest how both will and chance shape history. Columbus's design was grounded in error and miscalculation–but it succeeded brilliantly. Olafur Egilsson, a former board member of Iceland's historical society who believes that Columbus reached Iceland, thinks the visit could have been crucial. "It might have given Columbus confidence to know there were lands on the other side of the ocean," he says. Perhaps that's why, when the crew of the Santa María nearly rebelled, afraid the winds would never turn and blow them home again, Columbus calmed them, then kept sailing west.

[Locutus]

^^  What are you trying to prove with this?

[me]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15040888
Coming to America: Who Was First?

by Eric Weiner
Columbus gets the credit for being the first to land on these shores.
Bettmann/Corbis

Columbus gets the credit for being the first to land on these shores. Does he deserve it?
Columbus Competitors: The Theories

Was Christopher Columbus first? A host of competing theories say no. Here are a few of the more prominent ones:

Sixth Century — Irish Monks: This "theory" is actually more of a legend. A sixth-century Irish monk named Saint Brendan supposedly sailed to North America on a currach — a wood-framed boat covered with animal skin. His alleged journey is detailed in the ancient annals of Ireland. Brendan was a real historical figure who traveled extensively in Europe. But there is no evidence that he ever made landfall in North America.

In 1976, writer Tim Severin set out to prove that such a journey was possible. Severin built the Brendan, an exact replica of a sixth-century currach, and sailed along a route described by the traveling monks. He eventually landed in Canada.

10th Century — The Vikings: The Vikings' early expeditions to North America are well documented and accepted as historical fact by most scholars. Around the year 1000 A.D., the Viking explorer Leif Erikson, son of Erik the Red, sailed to a place he called "Vinland," in what is now the Canadian province of Newfoundland. Erikson and his crew didn't stay long — only a few years — before returning to Greenland. Relations with native North Americans were described as hostile.

This much had long been known from the Icelandic sagas. But until 1960, there was no proof of Erikson's American sojourns. That year, Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad and his wife, archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad, unearthed an ancient Norse settlement. During the next seven years, the Ingstads and an international team of archaeologists exposed the foundations of eight separate buildings. In 1969, Congress designated Oct. 9 as "Leif Erikson Day."

15th Century — The Chinese: This theory is espoused by a small group of scholars and amateur historians led by Gavin Menzies, a retired British Naval officer. It asserts that a Muslim-Chinese eunuch-mariner from the Ming Dynasty discovered America — 71 years before Columbus. Zheng He was a real historical figure, who commanded a huge armada of wooden sailing vessels in the early 15th century. He explored Southeast Asia, India and the east coast of Africa using navigational techniques that were, at the time, cutting edge.

But Menzies, in his best-selling 2003 book, 1421: The Year China Discovered America, asserts that Zheng He sailed to the east coast of the United States, and may have established settlements in South America. Menzies based his theory on evidence from old shipwrecks, Chinese and European maps, and accounts written by navigators of the time. Menzies' scholarship, though, has been called into question. Many of his claims are presented "without a shred of proof," says historian Robert Finlay, writing in the Journal of World History. Indeed, most historians say the "China first" theory is full of holes.

— Eric Weiner



Want to know more? Read an excerpt from 'Who Was First?'
text size A A A
October 8, 2007

Who discovered America?

For most of us, the answer to that question is straightforward: Christopher Columbus. That's what we were taught in school and that is why we celebrate Columbus Day. Yet it is far from clear-cut.

There are alternative theories about who got here first — some well-documented, others much more flimsy in their scholarship. Author Russell Freedom explores the various contenders for the title of "first" in his new book, Who Was First? Discovering the Americas. He shares his insights with NPR.

When you started this project, were you like the rest of us? Did you believe that Christopher Columbus discovered America and that was it, end of story?

I was vaguely aware of the Vikings. But really, what incited my interest was a book called 1421: The Year China Discovered America. That book has been largely debunked, but what is clear is that there have been successive waves of immigration to the Western Hemisphere from outside. Where they came from and when they arrived and how they got here — that's all still speculative.

Tell me about the Irish Monks who supposedly predated even the Vikings.

That falls into the realm of legend. But it's possible that they came across the North Sea, to what is now Newfoundland, before the Vikings. No one knows for sure.

And the Vikings?

That is well established. I visited the archeological site at the northern tip of Newfoundland. There is no question about it. It has been definitely determined that the Vikings were there for about 10 years — specifically, Leif Erikson and his extended family.

Is there any physical evidence that remains today?

Yes, the remains of their houses, of their settlement. There was an archeological dig that lasted six or seven years, and then they reconstructed the settlement about 100 yards away.

What did Leif Erikson make of this New World?

It was full of wonderful resources: timber and grapes. Coming from Greenland, as he did, which had no timber or grapes to make wine, these were two priceless discoveries. That's why the Vikings called it "Vinland" or Wine Land.

So if it was so wonderful, why didn't the Vikings stay longer?

The Indians didn't want them to stay. The first encounter was when the Vikings came across 10 Indians taking naps under their overturned canoes — and the Vikings killed them. That did not set up a very good mutual relationship. There were some attempts at trading, but the Vikings felt quite menaced and outnumbered, and the Indians did not appreciate their presence. The Vikings did return to North America, but only for trading. They never settled again.

What about the "China first" theory? Is there any evidence to support the notion that Chinese mariners set foot in America before Columbus?

There is credible evidence that a Chinese fleet went as far as the coast of Africa, in present-day Kenya. It was the largest maritime fleet in the world, under the command of Zheng He, a favorite of the emperor. Whether the fleet went around the horn of Africa and then across the Atlantic is speculative. The theory has been widely shot down by experts in the field. There is no real evidence. The author uses a grab bag of evidence, some of it is suggestive and some of it is ridiculous.

So if Columbus wasn't first, why does he get all of the credit?

He opened up America to Europe, which was the expansionist power at the time. He was the one who made it possible for them to conquer the Western Hemisphere — and to bring with them the diseases that apparently wiped out 90 percent of the population. He wasn't the first (and neither were the Vikings) — that is a very Euro-centric view. There were millions of people here already, and so their ancestors must have been the first.

What did you find most surprising in researching this book?

For one thing, the longevity of settlement of the Western Hemisphere — 20,000 years, at least. I don't think it's silly, this quest for answers of who got here first. You always want to know what happened before you. It' a human instinct to know where you came from and what proceeded you. How did they get here? Who were they? The fact that we don't know for sure makes it quite fascinating.

[me]

^^  What are you trying to prove with this?

Olias started it I didn't. 

[Locutus]

Olias started it I didn't. 

I didn't ask who started it.  I asked what you were trying to prove.