this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2025
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not only that, he was so wrong. people back then didn't just knew that the earth was round, they also knew the size, and knew no ship of the time could voyage westward to asia.
Colombus believed the earth was much smaller, and was told he was an idiot at the time.
he is likely one of the luckiest people alive, as he was going to die (they cross the point of no return, where they didn't have enough supplies to return). If it wasn't for a fucking giant ass continent in the way he would have died and be forgotten in history, except for the occasional short form video about dumbest people in history. or a Matt Parker video about his exact mathematical mistake he did titled (how a geometric mistake killed 89 sailors).
I can just see Queen Isabella agreeing to fund the trip just to get rid of Columbus. "Let's just pay him to go out to sea and die, Ferdinand. He's so fucking annoying." Then he walks into court in 1494 with a tan, a cob of corn and a chili pepper talking about "Hey you got any more of them boats? We went to leave Japan and the Santa Maria wouldn't start, I think it needs a new alternator."
Isabella doesn't have room in her head for this much surprise, confusion and anger at the same time so she's trying to ask him how the fuck he isn't dead but she keeps phrasing it in ways that makes Columbus recount his adventure. Like the first thing out of her mouth is "Where did YOU come from?" And Columbus lists all the islands he visited. Then she says "how did you not starve?" And he talks about provisions running low and then the men eating rope and hunting the ship's rats before they made landfall. It doesn't help that Columbus is Italian (and a bit thick) so Isabella's astonished Spanish isn't fully landing. Ferdinand's over there, got his eyes squeezed shut chuckling into his fist because this is the funniest shit he's seen all month but Isabella must NEVER know this or there'll be no living with her.
Then they send him back out and he commits just...all the atrocities.