Christopher Columbus needed GPS

Before I start my rant, let me qualify it by saying that I have a Deep Hatred for lies in "accepted History" in this country. I have dozens of books which tell the truth about our history and expose lies, myths, and half-truths that are being shoved into textbooks and other historical volumes.

One of my favorite things to gripe about concerning the history of our country and continent is the widely-accepted (and rarely refuted) claim that Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean searching for India and attempting to prove that the world wasn't "flat." First, proof that the world isn't flat was made CENTURIES before Columbus was even born...perhaps even longer than that. The "flat earth" myth comes from Washington Irving's biography about Columbus. It was not a researched fact by Irving, but it has survived the Columbus Myth to this day.

In fact, the circumference of the earth had been calculated by numerous ancient tribes and civilizations. Eratosthenes is generally given credit for calculating the size (and shape) of the earth in 240 B.C., but the Egyptians and Sumerians preceded him in generating it at least 2000 years earlier.

In Charles Hapgood's book "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings" there are numerous contemporary maps made around the time of Columbus's arrival in the Western Hemisphere that accurately show the coastlines of both Central and South America. Some even show a good portion of eastern North America.

Barry Fell's book "America: B.C." outlines numerous civilizations that traveled to North America in the centuries before Columbus's first trip. The Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Irish, the Celts, the Libyans, the Vikings, the Romans and the Western Africans, the Norwegians, the Chinese and the Basque (Spanish). In fact, the first voyage Columbus took was piloted by Basque men.

In fact, on Columbus's 4th trip (to Costa Rica) in 1502, the natives took him and his crew on a 2-hour trek through the jungle to the grave of previous explorers who were buried under the prow of a ship...obvious proof that the Columbus crew weren't the first to visit. And when he visited Haiti, the native Arawaks had spear points made from "guanine" that were given to them from "black traders from the South and East."

Now, we need to address the real reasoning for Columbus's voyage...Spanish colonization and fortune hunting. In the fifty years after the first voyage, the Spanish conquered, destroyed and colonized much of Central and South America--almost completely wiping out complete civilizations and cultures that pre-dated Spain as a country. They single-handedly wiped out the Aztec and Inca empires. The introduction to Smallpox virtually wiped out millions of natives, not to mention the mass killings at the hands of Spanish missionaries.

On his first trip, he kidnapped about 20 natives and took them back to Spain. Only a few of them survived the trip. But they also brought parrots, gold trinkets, and other goodies with them. On the next trip, Ferdinand and Isabella provided Columbus with 17 ships, over 1,000 men, cannons, crossbows, guns, cavalry, and attack dogs. Get the picture?

Needless to say, on the next few trips, the Arawak Indians were forced to fetch gold for the Spanish conquerors and faced death or losing their hands to the blade if they didn't bring an ample amount. What followed was the equivalent of cultural genocide at the hands of the Columbus crew. From 1494 to 1508 in Hispanola, over 3 million perished from famine, slavery, war or mining for gold.

I think it would be overkill to outline the following travesties at the hands of the Spanish and Western Europeans that the Mayans, Inca, Aztecs and others faced in the following years.

And we gave this guy a Federal Holiday? Really?