| | Columbus was a devout Christian, according to the teachings of the Spanish church at the time. A fact that is often downplayed and ignored is that he was rumored to never have sworn—something unusual for a sailor at that time. On his ship, his shipmates would frequently engage in religious worship. After his death, it was thought he should have been named a saint for bringing the Christian faith to half the known world while Spain sent thousands of missionaries to the America's. It is because of Columbus that Latin American has the highest number of professing Christians.<ref>http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1992/issue35/3502.html</ref> | | Columbus was a devout Christian, according to the teachings of the Spanish church at the time. A fact that is often downplayed and ignored is that he was rumored to never have sworn—something unusual for a sailor at that time. On his ship, his shipmates would frequently engage in religious worship. After his death, it was thought he should have been named a saint for bringing the Christian faith to half the known world while Spain sent thousands of missionaries to the America's. It is because of Columbus that Latin American has the highest number of professing Christians.<ref>http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1992/issue35/3502.html</ref> |
| − | Thanks to the left-wing history book ''[[A People's History of the United States]]'' by communist [[Howard Zinn]], however, Columbus has been falsely demonized by anti-American scholars as being a slave-trader, a mass-murderer against Native Americans, and a man who, were he alive in the current age, would have been tried for crimes against humanity. As was common practice in his works, Zinn made this argument with misleading quotations of Columbus and over-reliance on sources of questionable objectivity. For example, he used the explorer's statement on first encountering the Arawaks, "They would make fine servants," to suggest Columbus intended from the start to enslave the natives, when in fact he was commenting on their docile nature and the apparent efforts of neighboring tribes to enslave them.<ref>Mary Grabar, ''Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation Against America'' (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2019), 11-12.</ref> | + | Thanks to the left-wing history book ''[[A People's History of the United States]]'' by communist [[Howard Zinn]], however, Columbus has been falsely demonized by anti-American scholars as being a slave-trader, a mass-murderer against Native Americans, and a man who, were he alive in the current age, would have been tried for crimes against humanity. As was common practice in his works, Zinn made this argument with misleading quotations of Columbus and over-reliance on sources of questionable objectivity. For example, he used the explorer's statement on first encountering the Arawaks, "They would make fine servants," to suggest Columbus intended from the start to enslave the natives, when in fact he was commenting on their docile nature and the apparent efforts of neighboring tribes to enslave them.<ref>Mary Grabar, ''Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation Against America'' (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2019), 11-12.</ref> |
| | + | Emir [[Shakib Arslan]] dwelled (at least early on) around the delusional story that the Arabs preceded Christopher Columbus, crossed the Atlantic Ocean and discovered America. <ref>Menashe Shaul, [https://www.news1.co.il/Archive/0024-D-89916-00.html The past belongs to the past], News1, 02/02/2014.<blockquote> |
| | + | Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. The conversation between them revolved around the delusional story that the Arabs preceded Christopher Columbus, crossed the Atlantic Ocean and discovered America. Alafjani said: "When the Arabs try to cover up their omissions and backwardness these days, they claim that their ancestors did this and that. And this is the problem. Instead of doing something to fulfill their ambitions, they cling to their past."</blockquote></ref> |