They knew the earth wasn’t flat; they didn’t know how large it was.
Columbus vastly underestimated the distance or he just wanted to be sponsored to sail over.
He went a bit nuts in the new world, and was returned to Spain by knights sent to check out the situation.
They wanted to find a route to Asia which didn’t require having the Arabs as middlemen.
Eventually they got what they had wanted; a sea route from the Philippines to Mexico (New Spain), which galleons sailed for years.
Sometimes pirates attacked the Spanish galleons off Baja California Sur. An English pirate Miles Cavendish was one, think of him next time you look at the arches at Cabo San Lucas.
The phone book there had some English surnames, from pirates who decided to stay. A Mexican friend of mine from there has an English descendant and surname.
God Bless Christopher Columbus, without whom we would not be here to even debate the issue.
Maybe the Chinese or Arabs would have colonized the New World if Europeans had not done it. Some Old World group certainly would have. I'm glad it was Europeans with their ideals of freedom and democracy which are still missing among the Chinese and the Arabs.
90% of the Indians would have died just the same the moment they got smallpox from the Chinese or the Arabs.
Haven't they re-named it "White Privilege Indian Fucker Day" yet?
Here is the kicker about whole thing. People who were against Columbus day since the fucking 70's were actually anti immigrant groups. Because Columbus day was a celebration not just of discovery, but they believed it celebrated immigration. Those anti immigrant groups were native Americans who hated European immigrants. But you know "fuck white people" wasn't a catchy slogan in the 70's in America yet. So they decided to try another angle, by calling it "indigenous people day". That slogan is only in a few places where dumb-ass pandering politicians fall for shit like that.
To most people Columbus day is just a day of discovery of America, nothing more. It's the crazy fucks on the left who try to make it into something else. I'm sure they'd cancel fathers day too as it's "mysogeny" and cancel independence day because it celebrates "slave America". Giving in to the left an inch is never an option, they just push for another inch.
Europeans were pre-slaughtered survivors of their own diseases (herd immunities and all that). Indians were much more concerned about killing and torturing their traditional tribal enemies than they were about Europeans initially. They loved killing each other, they were not peaceful flower munchers. The accounts of what Indians did to Indians were horrific.
Euros brought horses, guns, iron weapons, and mass production of tobacco, which Indians did not necessarily regard as bad things when they got them, and at first gave them an advantage over their traditional tribal foes.
Lets not forget how we all got here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuvRFZ4Mxbo&feature=fvw