“One of the most important of life’s lessons is to learn independence, to understand freedom. This means independence from attachments, from results, from opinions, and from expectations.”
Brian Weiss, Messages from the Masters
Tag Archives: American history
Memorial Day 2022
“Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength.”
Filed under News
It’s Still a Matter of Respect
Yesterday, July 3, the Washington Redskins football team made the stunning announcement that they would actually consider changing their name; at least change the “Redskins” part of it. If there’s a true case of better late than never, this is it. For decades, the nation’s Native American population and their supporters have demanded Washington remove the “Redskins” feature of their moniker. As recently as 2013, team owner Dan Snyder scoffed at the possibility of such a move. Many have expressed surprise that Snyder would be opposed to the alteration because he is of Jewish-American extraction. But I say it’s because he is Jewish-American that he remained reticent to a change. From what I’ve seen, many people of Jewish faith and ethnicity feel they are not only the “Chosen Ones” of humanity, but they are the ONLY ones who have ever suffered the horror of genocide. So much so that the term ‘holocaust’ has metamorphosed into ‘Holocaust’ as a direct reference to Nazi Germany’s attempt to obliterate the Jewish people. Snyder had spat out the usual Caucasian rhetoric of venerating Native Americans as fierce warriors with the word “redskin”.
In his formal statement, he declared, in part, “This process allows the team to take into account not only the proud tradition and history of the franchise, but also input from our alumni, the organization, sponsors, the National Football League and the local community it is proud to represent on and off the field.”
Not once did Snyder mention the derogatory nature of the word “redskin”. In the spirit of thick-skin football, I presume Snyder wouldn’t mind me recounting a couple of old Jewish jokes someone told me more than 30 years ago.
“Hear about the new German microwave oven?
Seats 500.”
Or…
“What’s a Jewish woman’s favorite sex position?
Bent over the checkbook.”
In the spirit of racial unity, I wanted to refer to one of my earliest essays, “A Matter of Respect,” in which I address this very issue. Because, like love and hope, respect never dies.
Filed under Essays
Tulsa and June 19th
“And so when this terrible thing happened, it really destroyed my faith in humanity. And it took a good long while for me to get over it.”
– Olivia Hooker, survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riots
It’s a typical story: White woman claims Black man assaulted her; mob of White men become enraged and launch a hunt for said perpetrator; any Negro male is automatically presumed guilty; exact details supposed incident are unknown. This was the scenario in May of 1921, when a young White female, Sarah Page, in Tulsa allegedly screamed after a young Black man, Dick Rowland, entered the elevator she operated. Even today the circumstances of the exchange between Page and Rowland remain unclear. But, in 1921, scores of hate-filled White men didn’t need to know such minutia. The White woman’s words were the only details they needed.
And thus, commenced what is now known to be the worst race-based riot in U.S. history. Police found Rowland and charged him sexual assault. The sheriff had refused to hand Rowland over to bands of outraged Whites. The throngs of self-proclaimed vigilantes stormed through Tulsa’s Black-dominated Greenwood neighborhood to exact further revenge. Greenwood featured a district known as “Black Wall Street;” where businesses owned and operated by African-American residents had become an incredibly independent and thriving economy within a city of some 100,000.
When the initial chaos was over, upwards of 300 Greenwood-area residents were dead and thousands left homeless. Some Black veterans of World War I (then called the “Great War”) had taken up arms in defense of their community, which surely incentivized the angry White men to continue their violent retribution.
The same madness would occur in Rosewood, Florida two years later. A White woman reported that a Black man had entered her home and attacked her. The woman’s husband gathered a group of about 500 Ku Klux Klan members and began a hunt through the area for any Black man they could find. They learned that a Black member of a prison chain gang had escaped and believed Black residents of Rosewood were helping him hide. The mobs then systematically tore through town, killing whoever they could (mostly Black men) and driving out most of the survivors. The entire community of Rosewood was decimated. The story of what happened remained largely unknown until at least the 1980s.
The story of Tulsa still remains largely unknown. I’d heard of the horror some 30 years ago and wondered why such a calamity would be so obscure. I now know why. Like much of Native American history, true aspects of the African-American experience are often overwhelmed by the cult of American greatness; the “Manifest Destiny” myths stained heavily with Eurocentric viewpoints. The Tulsa Massacre has received greater attention in recent months because of the tragic deaths of several African-Americans. Its significance has grown even more within the past couple of weeks, as Donald Trump was set to stage a campaign rally in Tulsa today. But that’s been postponed to tomorrow.
COVID-19 concerns aside, the event would have been held on one of the most historic dates in American history. On June 19, 1865, news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached the state of Texas – more than two years after then-President Abraham Lincoln had signed it. The decree established “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”
Known as Juneteenth, the event is now celebrated as a turning point in the U.S. Civil War; bringing an end to one of the bloodiest conflicts on American soil. The Emancipation Proclamation forcibly freed millions of people from the carnage of slavery; granting them the dignity of their humanity; something that had been stolen from their ancestors ensnared in the traps of slave traders on the beaches of West Africa.
That Donald Trump – one of the most cognitively-challenged and covertly racist presidents the U.S. has ever had – would hold a reelection rally on this date and 99 years after one of the single worst racial holocausts in modern American history speaks to an incredible level of ignorance among the historical elite and certainly of its arrogance. Knowing Trump, this shouldn’t be surprising. But the partiality of U.S. history also shouldn’t be surprising.
Many factors of our history – some dating back thousands of years – have been absent from the historical account. For decades, myths persisted that Native Americans willingly bowed down to Christianity and that Blacks lived happily within an enslaved existence. Even now, for example, many Americans believe most Hispanics are Latin American immigrants; when, in fact, the history of Hispanics in the U.S. goes back further than that of other Europeans and is tied inexorably with Native American history. In other words, it IS American history.
Anger over Trump’s June 19 convocation forced organizers to reschedule it for the 20th. But that won’t solve the dilemma of deliberate ignorance – just like civil rights legislation didn’t make all racial transgressions moot. The 1965 Voting Rights Act eliminated many of the barriers to voting obstruction. But, since the election of Barack Obama in 2008, we’ve seen Republican-dominated state legislatures try to roll back some of those protections under the guise of preventing voter fraud.
Much of the anger among Whites in 1921 was that Tulsa’s Greenwood section was prosperous and independent. The same happened with the Tigua community 18 years ago, when the state of Texas shut down their casino under the ruse of combating illegal gambling. The Tiguas had become wealthy and independent with proceeds from the casino; thus, lifting most out of poverty and off of welfare. But they hadn’t gotten permission from the conservative, predominantly White state legislature; an affront of unimaginable proportions the latter. Therefore, then-Governor Rick Perry and then-State Attorney General John Cornyn forced the casino to close. Many of the Tigua have now slipped back into poverty and back onto state assistance. Even as of last year, Texas is still trying to stop the Tiguas from becoming self-sufficient.
Again, anyone with a clear mind shouldn’t be surprised. Economic independence and wealth translates into political power. The voices and experiences of those communities are no longer silenced. That, in turn, upsets the self-appointed power elite – and the oppression begins. It used to come at the end of firearms and sticks. Now it comes with legislation.
It’s too easy to dismiss the ignorance of people like Donald Trump. But it’s also dangerous. And it does a disservice to the American conscious.
We can never truly make amends for incidents like Tulsa. We can, however, honor such brutal transgressions by remembering them; remembering exactly what happened and not deleting any feature of those accounts because some are uncomfortable with it. Again, that’s a disservice to the American conscious.
Filed under Essays
Romanov Redux
Russia’s ill-fated Romanov Family, c. 1913.
Shortly after Donald Trump was sworn into office as the 45th President of the United States, I referred to various photographs of the Trump family in their multi-million-dollar New York penthouse residence. “The Donald” is, of course, featured prominently front and center, with his (third) glamorous, trophy wife perched nearby; along with their son, Baron, and the real estate magnate’s adult children. Almost as prominent are the slew of plush, gilded furnishings spread throughout the abode. I kept thinking I’d seen similar photographs before; various pictures from newspapers and magazine, as well as recollections of a TV show that truly embodied 1980s-era chic and gluttony: “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” (Trump was featured in the very first episode and made recurring appearances.)
At one point, though, I turned to my massive collection of books and spotted one that displayed an even more accurate depiction of the Trump family; another clan who lived long ago in similar plush surroundings, perched high above the lowly masses. Lindsey Hughes’ “The Romanovs: Ruling Russia 1613 – 1917” describes the life and times of Russia’s last monarchal family. For more than 300 years, the Romanovs directly impacted world politics with their wealth and power; creating a massive empire that – even in today’s watered-down version – stretches across two continents. From Tsar Michael to Tsar Nicholas II, the Romanovs maintained a steady grip on the region; impressing their subjects and striking fear in their enemies.
But, by the time the dynasty marked its tercentenary in 1913, that grip had begun to weaken. Like the rest of Europe’s royal families, the Romanovs remained encapsulated in their heavily-fortified palatial environs; far removed from the sundry plights tormenting their own people and oblivious to the real world lurking outside those jewel-encrusted walls. Nicholas II was the first of the European monarchs to be ousted from power, as World War I intruded into Russian territory, and a growing internal revolution stalked the Romanov family.
While the assassination of Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophia, essentially marked the start of World War I, the death of the Romanovs signified the end – not just to the war, but also to the long-held concept that power and wealth are best held in the hands and pockets of a blessed few and that those few are part of the same bloodline that is never to be disturbed or questioned. It was shocking enough to international onlookers that a single gunman was able to kill Franz and Sophia with a few shots from a pistol; even as many outside of Europe initially wondered where was this place called Austria-Hungary. But, as news of the Romanovs’ demise trickled out, the anger and frustration of an oppressed people became brutally apparent. Nicholas and his immediate family, along with a handful of servants, were peppered with bullets in a basement far removed from their stately home; their bodies burned beyond recognition and dumped in neighboring woods.
The Trump family in their New York penthouse abode.
World War I was actually the culmination of the growing anarchist movement, which had its genesis in the heated anger of economic and social inequality among Europe’s working classes, before spreading westward across the Atlantic to plant itself in the U.S. and Canada. Even México had succumbed to the wrath of the peasant masses; with outlaws Francisco “Pancho” Diaz and Emiliano Zapata joining forces to lead a revolt against a semi-monarchal dynasty of wealthy landowners and bankers.
This was the dawn of the 20th century; where ordinary people – the one who really keep a nation moving – finally stood up and collectively announced, “Enough!” The rampages continued, as Europe began losing their colonial holdings in Africa and elsewhere, and Latin American nations saw military dictatorships crumble in the face of concerted human rights’ campaigns. One of the 20th century’s last acts of peasant anarchy came with the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Romania, the chaos became lethal when leader Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were dragged before a court trial staged by their otherwise lowly subjects, found guilty and lynched in public. That something so horrific could happen in 1989 shocked the world. But, for the oppressed peoples of staunchly communist Romania, it was perhaps the best Christmas present they’d ever had.
To some extent, anarchism actually sprouted roots with the American Revolution, where a mass of English immigrant descendants decided they simply did not want to be slaves to the British Crown. Shortly afterwards, French commoners took a queue from their American counterparts and launched their own revolution; one where they didn’t just extract their regal hoodlums from gigantic estates, but relished in the sight of royal heads literally rolling across wooden platforms. Throughout the 19th century, Spain and Portugal stood virtually helpless as their colonial holdings in the Americas wrenched themselves from the clutches of royal decree – only to stumble through the difficulties of independence and struggles with democracy; quagmires that exist to this day.
In 1900, China’s Boxer Rebellion was a desperate attempt by commoners to boot out European interlopers, which included assaults on Christian missionaries and converts. Some 100,000 people lost their lives in the various battles that summer. But a growing dissatisfaction towards the Qing Dynasty and the family of Emperor Puyi (sometimes spelled P’u-i) compelled the working classes to descend upon the sacred and mysterious “Forbidden City.” Puyi was only 3 years old when he ascended to the throne in 1908; less than four years later he was forced to abdicate and lived out the rest of his life as an undistinguished commoner. At the start of the 20th century, it seemed that China was poised to endure the same experience as the African continent: be carved up by European colonialists. But, if the Chinese people no longer wanted single family rule, did anyone believe they’d let bands of foreigners from the other side of the globe do the same? By the 1930s, China had evicted the Europeans.
World War II fractured Europe. A few royal families managed to survive; most notably in Great Britain. But they were all financially and morally exhausted. This culminated in the U.K. losing their colonial hold on India and Pakistan in 1947. Next came the vast continent of Africa, where European decolonialization occurred over the ensuing four decades; a massive undertaking that involved millions of people on a scale the world had never experienced before.
The 20th century’s anarchist fangs reached across the globe, toppling the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos and Haiti’s Jean-Claude Duvalier in the 1980s. One of its high points was the release of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela in 1990 and the dismantling of that country’s brutal apartheid regime within a decade. South Africa had been the last of Europe’s many colonial assets to gain independence.
Imprisoned by the British in 1953 following the Mau Mau uprising and exiled in 1959, Jomo Kenyatta later emerged as one of the best-known African leaders. He served as Kenya’s first president from 1967 – 1978 and founded various pan-African nationalist movements.
A low point, though, was Argentina’s futile attempt to wrest control of the Falkland Islands from Great Britain in 1982; a brief conflict that resulted in more than 900 military deaths. Why the U.K. insists on retaining control of this tiny cluster of isolated rocks 7500 miles from the homeland remains less of a mystery than a prime example of colonialist arrogance. (Some Britons still refer to the U.S. as “the colonies.”) While Argentina was in no political or financial position to engage in such a daring military feat at the time, they have since matured and solidified their infrastructure. In 2012, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner blocked two British cruise ships that had visited the Falklands from docking on the mainland. Argentina has vowed to enforce further similar bans in the future, which could damage the Falklands’ vital tourist industry.
In the Middle East, anarchism produced schizophrenic results. Anti-royal sentiments led to the 1973 deposition of the Barakzai, Afghanistan’s royal family. That may have set the stage for the Soviet Union’s bloody but futile attempt to annex that country in 1979. However, the U.S. became unexpectedly mired in the antagonism of the Iranian populace towards their own royal family, the Pahlavis. Shah Reza Pahlavi had crowned himself emperor in 1967 and led a brutal regime where dissidence was punished with unprecedented violence and oppression – tools common among wicked oligarchs. Pahlavi’s 1978 ouster led to the notorious Iran Hostage Crisis, which caught both the U.S. and the world completely off-guard. Concerned more with the Soviet threat and the oddly-christened “Cold War,” the U.S. government unwittingly experienced its first battle with Islamic extremism.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, royal families held on in Jordan and Syria. The discovery of oil on the Arabian Peninsula in the 1930s allowed the region’s ruling families and their subjects to be pulled up from the doldrums of a tribal / fiefdom-style existence and dropped into the vats of unimaginable wealth. No one seemed to care that women couldn’t drive cars, much less vote.
Average Mexican citizens rose up in 1910 to depose President Porfirio Diaz who ruled over them off and on for nearly four decades.
While anarchist anger dominated the 20th century, does the same hold true now? Studying the Trump clan, I can’t help but conjure up images of the Romanovs. Economic inequality is just as great now as it was a hundred years ago. We’ve returned to that “Gilded Age” period where the bulk of the world’s wealth and power sit in the grubby hands of a privileged few. The recent “Great Recession” was the worst economic downturn the U.S. had experienced since the “Great Depression.” Both debacles were the result of greed and political incompetence; the former mess instigated by the verbally-challenged scion of another monarchal-type dynasty: the Bush family. Aside from producing two of the worst presidencies within a generation, the Bush clan’s close ties to the Saudi royal family essentially allowed planning for and execution of the 9/11 events to go unnoticed; thus culminating in one misguided war and another illegitimate one, as the economy glided atop a housing bubble that didn’t just pop – it exploded. If regulations and measures a liberal president had established some eight decades ago hadn’t been in place, both the U.S. economy and the U.S. populace would have sunk into chaotic and murderous oblivion.
Power and wealth usually go together; conjoined twins that sometimes have no mercy for the commoners squirming beneath them. The leftist “Occupy Wall Street” movement didn’t gain as much traction as the right-wing “Tea Party,” which claimed passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010 as the seeds of their founding; when, in fact, it was the election of the nation’s first biracial president that pissed them off. If they were so upset about undue taxation, they would have put blame for the economic downturn where it belonged: on the backs of their own Washington leaders who keep propagating the myth of “trickle-down economics.”
But the rise of a foul-mouthed, thrice-married bombastic businessman to the highest office in the land has lit another fire beneath millions of ordinary Americans frustrated with a “jobless recovery”; no one going to jail for causing the recent banking / home loan debacle; and endless conflicts in the Middle East. The illegitimacy of Donald Trump’s placement in the White House makes a mockery of the American democratic experience. Our 18th century predecessors carefully designed a unique concept of governing and valiantly fought against the very people who brought them here. The United States was an outlandish experiment that could have gone seriously wrong if so many people hadn’t realized its true value and potential over the ensuing centuries. As a nation, we didn’t want a group of self-righteous elitists – families riddled with colorblindness, hemophilia and unbridled arrogance – to rule over us and not be questioned. Our American forbears understood that humanity must work as a unit to achieve the best possible society. The various civil rights actions of the past 200 years – from abolitionism to gay/lesbian rights – have helped to refine this strange idea known as democracy.
Looking again at the Trump clan, I still can’t help but think of the Romanovs and realize how much they all have in common. However, I don’t wish the same fate upon the Trumps. As brutal as we often seem to the international community, that’s not what Americans do or who we are.
Either way, we didn’t want or need a royal family 240 years ago to impose its fickle will upon our lives – and we don’t want or need one now.
Film footage of Tsar Nicholas II’s coronation in May 1896. It’s one of the earliest known (and one of the fewest surviving) motion pictures and the first known example of the new medium utilized to capture a major news event.
Filed under Essays
Columbus Day – Whatever!
The Christopher Columbus monument in Barcelona, Spain
Today is Columbus Day in the United States where narrow-minded Americans perpetuate the myth that Christopher Columbus discovered this country. It remains a popular fallacy despite obvious proof that the Western Hemisphere was not devoid of humans when Columbus and his fellow seafarers arrived. As someone who is part Indian (Mexican), this is a particularly vexing situation. But, as someone who is also Caucasian (Spaniard and German), I know I can be critical. For one thing, historical references can’t confirm exactly where Columbus landed. Some say present-day Hispaniola; others state Cuba. But, it’s pretty well understood that he didn’t make it to the American mainland.
We also have to understand some other facts that slip by the history texts, which have always had a Euro-Christian slant. Italian-Americans celebrate Columbus as one of their own. Evidence has surfaced in recent years, however, that the intrepid explorer was not actually a humble Italian weaver, but a Polish immigrant. Manuel Rosa, a professor at Duke University, claims that Columbus was the son of Vladislav III, an exiled king from Poland.
More importantly, though, Columbus had to seek help from Spain to finance his voyage. In the late 15th century, Italy was not actually a country, but a collection of city-states; fractured and in constant conflict. Apparently, no member of Italian royalty saw the value in Columbus’ grand scheme. Thus, he turned to Spain and received approval from Queen Isabella – one of my paternal ancestors.
Another myth is that Columbus had deliberately set out to discover the Americas, or traveled as a result of some divinely inspired vision. In reality, he wanted to find a westward route to India’s east coast and thus gain an advantage in the lucrative spice trade. Spices were as valuable as gold and silver at the time. Columbus believed Asia was where the Americas are and initially thought he’d arrived somewhere off the coast of China. Then, he thought he’d actually made it to India and thus, called the Taíno peoples of the Caribbean “Indians.”
Yet another major fact that goes unreported is that Columbus was not the first European to arrive in the Western Hemisphere. As Jared Diamond points out in his seminal book Collapse How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, scientists now realize that Norse Vikings arrived in North America nearly 500 years earlier. In the 1960’s, archaeologists unearthed remnants of a village in present-day Newfoundland known as “L’Anse Aux Meadows.” Norse literature also points to a land the Vikings called “Vinland.” The Norse had begun their march across the North Atlantic around A.D. 800; first populating the Orkney, Shetland and Faeroe islands, then moving onto Iceland and Greenland. There’s even some evidence that they’d made as far down North America’s eastern coastline as present-day Florida. But, that remains to be proven. By the time they landed in Newfoundland, however, they’d depleted much of their own energy and resources; thus any permanent settlement was unlikely.
But, here’s something even more important: people first arrived in the Americas between 15,000 and 25,000 years ago, if not sooner. They’d branched out across the entire Western Hemisphere, even reaching the southernmost tip of South America, long before Columbus started thinking about his trip. They built complex, intricate and highly-advanced societies – without firearms and without horses or cattle – and lived as best they could for all those millennia.
I’ve seen colorful illustrations of European men adorned in velvet and silk arriving on virgin American shores; their majestic ships moored in the distant background, carrying oversized crucifixes to which the scantily-clad Indians responded by dropping to their knees in automatic subjugation. But, it’s just not true. Columbus’ venture was a matter of commerce, not faith. The concept of spreading Christianity came later, as Spaniards began settling into México and then, as the English and the French began moving westward across North America. Some Indians allowed themselves to be converted to Christianity; more as a matter of survival, though, than some sort of mystical divine intervention. Others, however, strongly resisted and were subsequently beaten down by White settlers who used their religiosity more as a tool of oppression than benevolence.
Investigations into the history of the Americas are ongoing, but in recent years, research has gradually proven the Siberian migration hypothesis to be true. One study found “a unique genetic mutation” that exists only in both the indigenous peoples of Siberia and Native Americans. Other recent data suggests that Japanese seafarers made it to South America’s Pacific coast around 3000 B.C. Scientists have found similarities in pottery among Japan’s Jomon culture and coastal Ecuadorian Indians. They also noticed that “the nautical capability of Chinese sea-going rafts” were identical to those of indigenous Peruvian and Ecuadorian peoples. Moreover, archaeologists have found early specimens of the peanut – which is native to South America – in China. That humans populated just about every corner of the Western Hemisphere is testament to overall human ingenuity and determination. That they – we – have survived 500 years of disease, exploitation and genocide is even more impressive.
None of this is historical revisionism, as some staid elitists might claim. The facts are now coming forward and being revealed, whether the old-timers like it or not. It’s a mixed heritage. I’m glad, for the most part, that Europeans made it over here. But, what they did to the indigenous peoples cannot be underestimated or dismissed. While nothing can be done about it now, it’s futile to ignore historical facts – even if it puts a damper on all those Columbus Day picnics and yard sales at Wal-Mart.
Filed under Essays
Christopher Columbus May Have Been Polish
Columbus
This story made the news last year, but it’s worth repeating. Portuguese historian Manuel Rosa has uncovered evidence that navigator and explorer Christopher Columbus – a heroic figure to the Italian people – may have actually been Polish. In Columbus: The Untold Story, published in Spain, Rosa, a professor at Duke University in North Carolina, claims that Columbus was the son of exiled Polish King Vladislav III and a Portuguese noblewoman. Columbus, declares Rosa, may have lied to protect his true identity.
The conventional tale states that Columbus was born in 1451 as the son of humble Genovese weavers. But, Rosa believes the explorer was able to convince the Spanish monarchy to finance his voyage across the Atlantic only because he was descended from royalty himself.
According to Rosa, Columbus was trained as a pilot in Portugal and lived in Madeira where he married Filipa Moniz, a Portuguese noblewoman and daughter of Bartolomeo Perestrello, a Knight of the household of Prince Henry the Navigator, Captain and Governor of Porto Santo, a smaller nearby island at northeast of Madeira.
Columbus’s 1479 marriage to Filipa Moniz, who was an elite member of the Order of Santiago, required the approval of King John II of Portugal indicating the recognition by the King of Columbus’s aristocratic lineage.
About his theory being met with some reservation by other researchers, Rosa welcomes the challenge. “Although there are many academics familiar with my research that support my conclusions,” he says, “I understand that this will take some time to work its way through the big machine of academia, the media, and the public’s inquiring minds. But in the end, I am confident the change will have to happen, especially if an English language edition gets published.”
I know a lot of Italians will probably get upset at this revelation, but my personal lack of political correctness doesn’t give a damn. Some Italians – like many others – still perpetuate the myth that Columbus discovered the Americas, as if the land was devoid of people and civilizations. Regardless of Columbus’ true identity, it doesn’t deflect from the fact that he wasn’t the first person in the Western Hemisphere, nor was he the first European. Sometimes history’s corrections are painful but necessary.
Christopher Columbus’s house on the island of Porto Santo, Madeira archipelago, now the Columbus Museum.
Filed under News
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