Blame for discovering this landmass? I wouldn't call that blame. I'd call it credit. Blame for something else is another matter.
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He didn't actually discover it.

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I don't recall any of the other visitors proclaiming any discovery. Whoever claims it first officially gets the credit. Like I said, not paperwork no credit.
Kinda like how © is. Who ever files it first gets the credit.
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Discovered? It wasn't exactly barren. It was populated. By people. A lot of them. Not that he cared.

He also was never on, or even terribly near to, 'this landmass'.

And he stole his lookout's reward money. That's just uncool.
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Discover as in to those who didn't know about it but did by then, due to him.
You know the people of that world.

Gutenberg gets credit for the printing press but the Chinese had similar inventions that is not given the same credit in the west.
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Occasionally, PB gets really lazy with his trolling. I would prefer to see a little more effort from him.
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Well, we certainly can't call it an "Indigenous People Day." There day was everyday. We call it Columbus Day because it was his day to find something that wasn't widely known in his world.

People of earth have been migrating from elsewhere for millenia.
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Okay, no more days to honor certain groups of people, then. We'll just put an end to Mother's Day, Father's Day, President's Day, Labor Day, Veteran's Day, and Memorial Day then, shall we?
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Well, descendants of the first visitors are still here. Also you may not recall the Vikings proclaiming their discovery of the continent but they did. Meanwhile Columbus thought he was in India. No rational person believes that he discovered the continent. It's a silly idea.

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Well, we certainly don't see Mothers clamoring to have their day on Father's Day now do we?

Look, Chris brought two worlds together as a result of his discovery at that time unlike any of the others earlier. Believe or not, there was substantial discussion about the abuses that happened in the New World among important parts of the Spanish population including the intellectual community of philosophers and theologians. Even Father Bartolomé de Las Casas, one of the biggest critics of Spanish policy there, spoke better of Columbus than he did administrators who followed. According to historian Tom Woods this philosophical reflection was the beginnings of modern international law. Not bad!

I haven't seen any moral qualms of Attila the Hun mentioned or written about or the Aztecs for their human sacrifices of other indigenous peoples.
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Meh, it's a matter of opinion that it's a silly idea. The Vikings don't count any more than the Phoenicians who may have beat them to it. I know Chris thought it was India but so what. It lead to significant change unlike the earlier ones. It was a discovery in that sense and to many others who weren't aware what the Vikings did. The Vikings were just close to the north, so it was easier. It was through Columbus that two major worlds were brought together. And you do have to do the paperwork.

Plus he's Italian.
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My ancestry is more Northern European so I'll go with the Vikings, even though there really were people already here.

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I keep getting a weird script code when I quote your post that runs on for awhile. Just a FYI.


I say so what if people were there before. They were in the Caribbean too. People were just about anywhere that was inhabitable and many came from elsewhere. Migrations were all over the place. Don't get me wrong, I do not worship Chris, he doesn't sound like a kind man and wasn't necessarily all that competent. However, saying his voyage and discovery wasn't novel or brave is just nonsense to me. It was both. It altered the course of history.

The other complaint I have is ignoring the treatment of the indigenous indians by their own. Both the Aztec and the Incas enslaved, engaged in endless warfare, practiced human sacrifice, and ruled with absolute despotism and power unknown by any European until the 20th century. Ya' know the Progressive era?

Anyhow their lives were hardly like the noble savages fictionalized by Rousseau later. Yet, the Europeans, especially the Spanish, were allegedly unsurpassed in their cruelty. The Spanish tend to be depicted as barbarians in history. I see this as a hold-over of Anglo-Saxon propaganda since Elizabethan times since they were the Catholics. But Christopher Columbus was not celebrated that much in the 19th century. That worship came much later.
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Oh, well my mom was Dutch. So I guess I'm split. I still say Chris should get due recognition.
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The radio announcer wanted to know if it was insensitive to play Led Zepplins Immigrant Song on Indigenous Persons Day.
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