Christopher Columbus was awful (but this other guy was not)

Sources: All of the information in this essay came from A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, and Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James W. Loewen, both of which uses primary sources such as eyewitness accounts, journal entries, and letters from Christopher Columbus himself. A very important note about Bartolomé de las Casas and the African slave trade This issue keeps coming up and, despite my footnotes, I keep seeing commentary about it so I'm going to address it here. Initially, Bartolomé de las Casas advocated the use of African slaves instead of native labor. I soon repented and judged myself guilty of ignorance. I know that the discovery of the New World means a lot of different things to a lot of different cultures. But please, oh please do not call it Columbus Day. Less than a year after the publication of this comic, Columbus Day was renamed to Indigenous People's Day in Seattle.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day

Wood Plank Wall DIY We recently completed a project in our bedroom (a diy wood plank wall) that has me dragging every stranger and friend into our house to show it off! The inspiration came from the walls that are inside the OC Mart Mix. We know our limits…so we knew we’d need some help on this project. We enlisted our contractor to help us with the final installation, but the leg work started with us. First off, we headed to Lowes to purchase pine. Lots and lots of 1×4 pine boards. Wardenclyffe Tower - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Nightly Coordinates: Wardenclyffe Tower (1901–1917) also known as the Tesla Tower, was an early wireless transmission tower designed by Nikola Tesla in Shoreham, New York and intended for commercial trans-Atlantic wireless telephony, broadcasting, and proof-of-concept demonstrations of wireless power transmission.[2][3] It was never fully operational,[4] and the tower was demolished in 1917. The tower was named after James S. Warden, a western lawyer and banker who had purchased land for the endeavor in Shoreham, Long Island, about sixty miles from Manhattan. Here he built a resort community known as Wardenclyffe-On-Sound.

Popular The terrible and wonderful reasons why I run long distances. A comic about a glorious undersea creature. 20 years ago today my house burned down, so I wrote a comic about it My dog: the paradox How to suck at your religion An ode to the father of the electric age. I created a better curriculum for high school seniors. A tribute to rooster sauce. A Visual Dictionary of Philosophy: Major Schools of Thought in Minimalist Geometric Graphics by Maria Popova A charming exercise in metaphorical thinking and symbolic representation. Rodin believed that his art was about removing the stone not part of the sculpture to reveal the essence of his artistic vision. Perhaps this is what Catalan-born, London-based graphic designer Genis Carreras implicitly intended in chiseling away the proverbial philosopher’s stone to sculpt its minimalist essence. Many moons ago, I discovered with great delight Carreras’s series of geometric graphics explaining major movements in philosophy and now, with the help of Kickstarter, the project has come to new life in book form.

6 Insane Discoveries That Science Can't Explain We like to feel superior to the people who lived centuries ago, what with their shitty mud huts and curing colds by drilling a hole in their skulls. But we have to give them credit: They left behind some artifacts that have left the smartest of modern scientists scratching their heads. For instance, you have the following enigmas that we believe were created for no other purpose than to fuck with future generations. The Voynich Manuscript Timur - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Nightly Timur, Tarmashirin Khan, Emir Timur, Timur Beg Gurkhani[1] (Persian: تیمور‎ Timūr, Chagatai: Temür "iron"; 9 April 1336 – 18 February 1405), historically known as Tamerlane[2] (Persian: تيمور لنگ‎ Timūr(-e) Lang, "Timur the Lame"), was a Turko-Mongol ruler of Barlas lineage.[3][4][5] He conquered West, South and Central Asia and founded the Timurid dynasty. He was the grandfather of Ulugh Beg, who ruled Central Asia from 1411 to 1449,[6][7][8] and the great-great-great-grandfather of Babur Beg, founder of the Mughal Empire, which ruled parts of South Asia for around four centuries, from 1526 until 1857.[9][10][11][12][13] Timur envisioned the restoration of the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan.[14] As a means of legitimating his conquests, Timur relied on Islamic symbols and language, referring to himself as the Sword of Islam and patronizing educational and religious institutions. Early history Emir Timur feasts in the gardens of Samarkand.

20 Animals You Won't Believe Actually Exist. One of Them Will Haunt You Forever. Posted Apr 24, by Val Liarikos The Red-Lipped Batfish walks around the bottom of the ocean floor walking on its fins. Yes, these things can walk. The Peacock Mantis Shrimp can deliver a punch that is just as powerful as a gunshot. You can't keep them in a normal aquarium because they will punch your other fish and even the tank's glass. Okapis are closest related to the giraffe family. 21 GIFs That Explain Mathematical Concepts “Let's face it; by and large math is not easy, but that's what makes it so rewarding when you conquer a problem, and reach new heights of understanding.” Danica McKellar As we usher in the start of a new school year, it’s time to hit the ground running in your classes! Math can be pretty tough, but since it is the language in which scientists interpret the Universe, there’s really no getting around learning it.

Nightly Mysterious Tunguska Explosion of 1908 in Siberia may be linked to Tesla's experiments of wireless transmission Nikola Tesla holding a gas-filled phosphor-coated light bulb which was illuminated without wires by an electromagnetic field from the "Tesla Coil". Many theories have been proposed for the cause of the explosion. One theory is that Tesla's experiments with wireless transmission may have inadvertently caused the explosion. Above: A bright, flaming object coming in from the sky at an angle and then a giant bright blast. (Full article can be found at )

13 World Mysteries Without Explanation Chinese mosaic lines These strange lines are found at coordinates: 40°27’28.56″N, 93°23’34.42″E. There isn’t much information available on these strange, yet beautiful mosaic lines carved in the desert of the Gansu Sheng province in China. NOVA Can Wind Turbines Make You Sick? Residents living in the shadows of wind turbines say the sound is making them sick. But so far the science isn't there. Aeroscraft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Nightly The Aeroscraft is the name of a series of cargo-carrying rigid airships planned by the Worldwide Aeros Corporation. The company is seeking funding for its ML866 model, which will carry 66 tons of payload, and for its ML868 model carrying 250 tons. A model capable of lifting 500 tons, the ML86X, is also on the drawing board.[1] A scaled-down prototype called the "Pelican" was completed in January 2013 with funding from the U.S. Department of Defense.[2] Technical details[edit]

One red paperclip The paperclip that Kyle MacDonald traded for a house. The website One red paperclip was created by Canadian blogger Kyle MacDonald, who bartered his way from a single red paperclip to a house in a series of fourteen online trades over the course of a year.[1] MacDonald was inspired by the childhood game Bigger, Better, and the site received a considerable amount of notice for tracking the transactions. "A lot of people have been asking how I've stirred up so much publicity around the project, and my simple answer is: 'I have no idea'", he told the BBC.[2] Trading timeline[edit] MacDonald made his first trade, a red paper clip for a fish-shaped pen, on July 14, 2005. He reached his goal of trading up to a house with the fourteenth transaction, trading a movie role for a house.