Discovering Ourselves

In recent popular culture Christopher Columbus has largely gone from hero to zero, but who was he really?

Columbus Day is coming up. You might even get the day off to celebrate. Here’s why.

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) got paid, and paid well, to travel. Pretty cool job, being an explorer backed by a monarchy. Who wouldn’t want that gig?

Good for you, Chris.

He made four trips across the Atlantic from Spain, in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502.

Ostensibly his main reason to travel was to convert the world to Catholicism (and that includes wanting to religiously re-train the Mahoma, the Muslims of India, where he was looking for a water route after the land route closed.) He also enthusiastically embraced ridding the world of Jews, as they were attempting to do at the time in Spain.

What in the frick-frack dickity-dack.