January 2005 - Tampa Bay Mensa

January 2005 25
similar oversimplification. They serve not to present specific
proposals for how to decide their history, but to encourage
your own conclusions. Pretend, if you will, that all history
books are to be rewritten and you are in charge. Your book
will affect what everyone else understands about these
examples. I think you will do a great job. Have fun. (While
you’re at it, take a look at the last couple of U.S. Presidential
elections, will you)
Trivia question: Who made the first non-stop flight across the
Atlantic Ocean Answer at the end of this article.
Who discovered the New World I cannot help but notice we
set aside a day in October to honor Christopher Columbus
and we all know that, aboard the Nina, the Pinta, and the
Santa Maria he sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and discovered ...
something. Therein lies the problem. The first of several, in
fact. Columbus was a fabulous mariner, but unlike the ocean
he crossed, his intellectual grasp was not very deep. For
instance, his determination of the size of the world was
substantially worse than the Greeks’ centuries earlier, which
was actually quite accurate. (In fact, Queen Isabella I's
advisors told her Columbus was underestimating of the size
26 Tampa Bay Sounding
of the world (based, in part, on Ptolemy's work), and I suspect
she nonetheless agreed to fund the expedition so the
Portuguese would not be the first to profit from finding a
westward passage to Asia.) As an alleged discoverer,
Columbus believed he had reached the East Indies (Malaysia),
or at least its surrounding islands, in spite of crossing the
Atlantic four times and getting nowhere near Asia. Of course,
his error is why the Indies and the Indians - Native American
ones - were so named.
I have found it worth examining exactly what it means to
discover, and I like to apply the following hypothetical
situation to an understanding of how discovery applies to this
New World question: Suppose we are a group that very much
needs bricks and a rather dim member of our group – call him
C.C. – is sent to get some. He stumbles upon a vast supply of
gold bricks and, bringing some back to the group, excitedly
claims “Look! Bricks!” A more astute member - call him
A.V. – visits the horde, examines the bricks and upon return to
the group announces, “Look! Gold!” So, which member of
the group discovered gold In the case of discovering the
New World, an explorer, map maker, and Columbus
contemporary named Amerigo Vespucci (A.V.) was the first to
realize the land C.C. traveled to was “new” and contemporary
maps called the continent Land of Amerigo, i.e., “America.”
Naturally, we should also consider the now well-established
fact that the Vikings had reached this new land centuries
earlier, but, being better at plundering than writing history,
they never really spread the word about any discoveries.
What part should they play in answering this question about
discovery And how about the fact that when Europeans did
first arrive at the continent, however you choose the date and
the person(s), the land already contained millions of residents
Does the “discovery” by those Asian migrants via the Bering
Strait not count in some way Perhaps it is better to discard
the concept of discovery here and rephrase the original