Did the whole 'Columbus discovered America' thing really get debunked or am I reading too much into it

I was looking up Viking settlements and apparently there's solid proof they were in Newfoundland around 1000 AD, way before Columbus. My buddy argued Columbus still counts because his voyage led to lasting contact, but isn't that just moving the goalposts? The Leif Erikson site at L'Anse aux Meadows is legit, carbon dating and everything. Anyone else feel like they teach a sugarcoated version in school?

3 comments

3 Comments

price.ben1mo ago

Wait wait wait hold on, your buddy actually said "Columbus still counts because his voyage led to lasting contact"? That's wild. That's like saying I discovered my neighbor's house because I was the first one to actually move into it, ignoring the fact that people had been living there for centuries. The whole "lasting contact" argument is just fancy talk for "we invaded and stayed," which is a whole different thing than discovering anything. Honestly, the fact that schools still push the Columbus story as the start of everything in the Americas is embarrassing. It's not about moving goalposts, it's about the goalposts being planted in the wrong spot from day one.

shane_hayes1mo ago

Tell him next time to ask what the Vikings were doing there 500 years earlier.

sean_green441mo ago

Yeah the "lasting contact" thing is such a stretch. I had a buddy who tried to argue that the Vikings didn't count because they just left after a few years. So I asked him, if I break into your house, leave for a bit, then come back with a moving truck, does that mean I discovered your house the second time? He got real quiet. The whole Columbus myth is so baked into the school system it's crazy. I remember my third grade teacher literally told us Columbus proved the world was round, which is a total lie since everyone already knew that. It's like we're still teaching fairy tales to grown adults. Your neighbor house analogy is perfect because it nails how dumb the whole "first to stay" argument sounds when you flip it around.