It is not that I don’t like Christopher Columbus. But we’ve gotten everything wrong about him, besides his name. And the year he first sailed into this hemisphere, 1492.
We’ve established that he didn’t “discover” America. We know, and have proven that people had already been living on the continent for tens of thousands of years. And even if there wasn’t a single soul on this land, he wasn’t even the first European explorer to reach North America. There was a crew of Vikings — led by Leif Eriksson — who actually sailed to Canada around 1000 AD.
But I just learned that the names of his ships were wrong too. They fit so well in the little song about him, but they aren’t historically accurate. Back in the 15th century, most sailing ships were named after saints. So, in that, the Santa Maria is probably the real name. But those squatty ones? The Niña and the Pinta? Those were probably just casual sailor nicknames at best. In fact, records show that the Niña’s real name was “the Santa Clara.” And the Pinta’s real name is unknown.
We get a lot of things wrong, historically.
Like good Ben Franklin and his discovery of electricity. Well, he didn’t. We all have heard about the famed experiment involving a key tied to a kite. But it wasn’t quite so revolutionary. Electricity was already a “thing,” and scientists were well aware of its existence by 1752. That was the year of Franklin’s experiment.
What Ben was trying to prove was that lightning was a “form” of electricity. He was the first guy to propose that hypothesis. By the time of his experiment, he was 46 years old and pretty well established. So, it may not even have been Franklin who sent the famous kite into the air. After the experiment, he wrote about the whole deal in the Pennsylvania Gazette. He talked about the success of the experiment and described how it worked. But in that entire article, he never actually said that he performed it himself. It wasn’t until 15 years later that a scientist guy named Joseph Priestly, wrote an account attributing the experiment to Franklin. So that one is (no pun intended) up in the air.
Van Gogh didn’t cut his ear off. Not all of it anyway.
Marie Antoinette didn’t say, “Let them eat cake.”
And that apple never fell on Sir Isaac Newton’s head.
We got those things wrong as far as the current information has revealed.
We get things wrong about science too.
Like, people think that humans were around when dinosaurs lived. Sometimes, we might even see a drawing of some caveman, heaving a spear at a dino. But in truth, we missed those dinosaurs by about 64 million years. Although, there was plenty else we had to worry about once we stood up on two legs and started walking.
Or this. Black holes aren’t actually “holes.” They are more like huge, huge, huge, (and hugely dense) objects that have an incredibly massive gravitational pull. Once something gets near a black hole, it may as well have disappeared down one.
We can’t even get our own bodies right. Like our senses. We have more than five senses. In fact, there are at least 21, which include balance, pain, temperature, and more.
And our tasty tongues? That old thing about how different sections of the tongue can only taste certain tastes, like bitter, sour, salty, sweet, and savory? Nope. It is just one big lumpy old mass of muscles in our mouths. Eight muscles in all. Covered in buds.
It goes on.
You should wake a sleepwalker, for sure. (They might get hurt.)
Put those fallen baby birds back in the nest. (Birds have a crappy sense of smell and they won’t know a human touched it.)
Bats aren’t blind. (Plus, they have echolocation at night, that sound sense with their super ears.)
And goldfish can remember longer than three minutes. In fact, they can remember things for up to three months. I’m not sure what all there is that they have to remember, but they can, certainly, if needed. I mean, there’s not a lot going on in the bowl.
Speaking of memory. Remember this. It is a scientific, proven fact, that you are the only one, just like you. In this entire universe. That makes you amazing and divine in your uniqueness. The world would not be complete without you. You can do things that no other person can. Go meet the day, with good, good you.
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“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
― John Adams, The Portable John Adams
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“Facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your likes.”
― Jawaharlal Nehru
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“The world, we are told, was made especially for man — a presumption not supported by all the facts.”
― John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf
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Getting it wrong, as we do.
