Discovering Columbus

jonerik writes "The New York Times has this article (no registration required) on plans to test the DNA on various sets of bones which are claimed to have been those of Christopher Columbus (or, as he's known in Spain, Cristóbal Colón). The plan is for José Antonio Lorente (English translation here), director of the Laboratory of Genetic Identification at the University of Granada to extract DNA from the bones of Columbus' illegitimate son Hernando and compare it to DNA extracted from bones in Seville and Santo Domingo which are both claimed to be those of Columbus. It is hoped that the testing can be carried out by 2006, the 500th anniversary of Columbus' death."

Comments

I doubt it...

[gnovos]

There is absolutly NO WAY that either of these two cities would be willing to let anyone test these bones. It is too big a risk. Back in the days when the bones were first collected, selling bones of famous people was a scam as ubiquitous as emails from Nigeria today. There is a REAL good chance that *neither* of these sets of bones are real and a possibility they are not even human...

Re:Columbus was late to the party!

[spencerogden]

Maybe you're just disagreeing to have fun, but the fact is that Columbus' visit was the one that caused a huge change in the world. When would the America's have been colonized if Columbus hadn't done it? Maybe around the same time, I don't know if there were other explorers pitching the same thing. But it doesn't matter that the phone would have been invented at exactly the same time if Bell hadn't been born, we still celebrate him as the inventor.

Re:Someone got something out of order.

[ImaLamer]

You get to eat today troll!

Too bad Columbus neither discovered or did the rest.

The latter Spanish (the same which killed anyone non-Catholic, same years) are the ones you think of.

I guess you forget the fact that Columbus was looking for India and China.

Re:Good ol' Chris....

[jonerik]

And incidentally, when I clicked the link to the alleged no-registration-required article, it asked me to register. Cute.

Sorry. In theory replacing the "www" part of a N.Y. Times URL with "college" is supposed to bypass the registration. Guess it didn't work in this instance.

Re:Someone got something out of order.

[ImaLamer]

I defend Columbus only slightly.

The Spanish after him did in fact give small pox (infested) blankets to the Indians. Columbus didn't do anything that would even be close to what they did.

Columbus has been quoted (i wish i had the bookmark still) as saying some nasty things about Spain because of them killing Jews (same year that he showed up at the Capital).

While not the nicest guy he was cooler than many at his time. Of course many of it's just culture.

U R HUNGRY YES?

[ImaLamer]

Jews are part of this discussion because in Spain at the same time they were being killed by the numbers.

In fact they weren't "universally" hated at those times. Spain just got real right-wing and they were a target. Jews loved Spain and Spain loved them - although they were treated better under the Moors (Moslems). Many went to Spain and chilled because everything worked out so well for so long. Ever heard of a language called Lindo?

I'm just saying that Christopher wasn't a fan of genocide.

Pox blankets do mean something because they were used on purpose... it was germ warfare even if they didn't understand why.

(those) Europeans anywhere is usually contamination because they tend to be a little racist.