In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-Two

Let's put it this way: Today is the whatevereth anniversary of Columbus's seeing a patch of land in the Americas. We all know Columbus didn't discover America, in the sense of being the first to see it. Obviously a whole bunch of Asians came over the land bridge and discovered America quite a few millennia before any Europeans did. And so just as obviously they were the original discoverers, unless there were others we don't know about.

Columbus wasn't the first European, either. The first Europeans in the Americas were a bunch of Vikings five centuries before him, but they didn't make a big deal out of it. I suppose Vikings lived such exciting lives that discovering a continent just didn't register all that much.

But certainly Columbus was the first person to realize that with superior killin'-folks technology, the Europeans could grab the Americas for themselves. He was also a relentless self-promoter, so as far as grabbing other people's stuff and talking about himself goes, he was something of a role model for a good chunk of humanity to this day. He wasn't a perfect person, certainly—there's the uncomfortable matter of the atrocities, cutting off hands and such. And he died some years after his (his) discovery still convinced he had found Asia. A one-track mind, that Columbus.

So I guess all you can say is that on October 12, 1492, something happened that had some pretty big consequences. On a subsequent October 12, something else happened—today happens to be the whatevereth anniversary of me. I don't know if this will ever turn out to be as consequential as Europe's encounter with the Americas. But I've been trying to get along with the natives, at least. That counts for something, right?