According to History Channel, Christopher Columbus did more than find new sea routes to the new world. He and his crew also found syphilis which they brought back and spread throughout Europe. If that’s not a reason to give him a national holiday and a parade, I don’t know what is.
If we didn’t have Columbus Day, what would the Italians have as an excuse for a big parade?
A lot of focus here on plague, not so much mention of our sharing of Pavarotti, pizza and of course Swedish things! like meatballs!
The Old World gave the New World so many diseases. And not just any diseases, no the Americas got Europe’s A-list illnesses. What did the giving Europeans get in return, only syphilis. As any counselor will tell you, relationships only last when both parties are willing to give of themselves unreservedly. 🙂
I’d say the Europeans got off light then considering they infected native American people with bubonic plague, chicken pox, pneumonic plague, cholera, diphtheria, influenza, measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, typhus, tuberculosis, and whooping cough. The best health care plan for native Americans back then should have been, “kill the white guys before they reach shore”.