[barnstenchfartface]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Kain

BTW, I think both Columbus and Nobunaga are heroes. Nobunaga started the unification of Japan and they owe it to him to be where they are today. Columbus discovered the Americas for Europe and we Americans also owe him for what he did because it allowed us to betray the motherland and declare ourselves a nation.

So whether someone is a hero or not is determined by what benefit they brought to a nebulous concept of "us?" Even if we're giving credit to Columbus for things that happened hundreds of years after his voyage, it does not change the fact that he brought nothing but genocide and slavery to the lands he did land upon.

It's true that his discovery (as unaware of the fact that it was a discovery he may or may not have been) did set up the stage for continued interaction between the Americas and Europe...but these interactions, for hundreds of years, were also marked by the decimation of the native peoples already living here.

So uh, yeah, hooray for European colonialism? Thanks, Columbus.

Eh, this is actually really off topic by this point. But yeah, the man was no hero. He may have been influential, one can even say we owe it to him for the fact that western civilization in the Americas took hold, or whatever. But a hero, he was not.