Chainsaw History - Bonus Episode: The Value of Christopher Columbus

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

Podcasting siblings Jamie and Bambi were forced to read the ValueTales series of "history" books as children, so we've decided to share! Learn the struggles of a young Italian cabin boy and the innermost thoughts of his imaginary pet seagull as he sets out to prove once and for all that the world is not a giant pizza surrounded by cosmic purple dragons. We also learn that the native peoples Columbus met were all very happy and compliant — hooray!This episode is sponsored by our Patreon community—where you'll find more ValueTales episodes and other bonus content!

Welcome to the bonus episode everybody of Chainsaw History. I'm Jamie Chambers, that's my sister Bambi talking, and this is another episode sponsored by our awesome people who hopefully are giving us money on Patreon, which you can get to at chainsawhistory.com. This is a series of bonus episodes where my sister and I dig into children's biography books that our parents foisted on us when we were little kids. So this is a series called The Value Tales. And Value Tales books are these 64-page hardcovers that take some notable figure from history.

A lot of it's American history, but some, some are not. And try to find some specific virtue in one of these historical heroes that a child can can take out of it. For example, previously re-recorded Nelly Bly, she was the value of what again? She was the value of fairness and for both of us, fuck every reason. It's like they wrote her even as an adult sounding like a child. It's not fair. It's not fair.

That's the value of fairness is whining about how unfair everything is your entire life. That's what children need to know. Yeah, she actually, I mean, she, yeah, she saw injustice and was like, fuck a bunch of that nonsense. Yes. So you and you for your episode. I broke the shit out of that glass ceiling. I love the shit out of Nelly Bly.

And you know what? Fun fact, just because it didn't go into her episode, I kind of didn't make good notes at all or notes at all, but yeah, she was a war correspondent and World War I was another of, I was like, I know there was another cool thing that she did that I couldn't think of. But yeah, she was the only woman that was allowed in considered danger zones. That's cool. So you did somebody who was admirable. I did.

She was great. And I've got someone for you that is long admired and probably shouldn't be. And in fact, there's for years now, there's been a thing. So I know who this is going to be. I was going to say, well, there's only one choice because we were supposed to record this yesterday, which would have been a national holiday. So it only made sense. Oh, it's a different asshole.

So I picked the value of curiosity, the story of Christopher Columbus because we just happy Indigenous People's Day a little bit late. I thought there's only one possible way to go. I mean, it's right there. This one's going to be dreadful and painful. So here we have on the cover our boy, what was he, Christopher Colombo in the original Italian because he is Italian. So the cover depicts Christopher Columbus who here is this ponchy big nose dude dressed

once again in purple, lots of purple. The illustrator is so into purple, man, blue hat, primary colors and fucking purple. And I can tell you want to do one intro, like historical inaccuracy, like right just on the basic art design for this character, Christopher Columbus by all accounts had like blonde or maybe reddish blonde hair that went gray very early when he's like 30 years old. So he always had light colored hair. Yeah, here he is like just jet black hair, but whatever, it doesn't really matter. So yes, this is a of all the things of all the bullshit things that are going to happen

in this book. I think that's going to be the least of them. Now here's the thing when you did your episode, you actually did research, you prepped, you looked at stuff. But because I'm a hack and a fraud, I just picked the book have not even really cracked it open. But I do say it's like whereas you picked something I, I, where I did my job correctly was in picking the book, I picked somebody we can tear apart like I can only make fun

of Nellie Bly so much because she's someone I actually admire. Christopher Columbus has had his dick sucked quite enough by history. Oh no, and I guarantee this is going to be the propaganda whitewash 80s America version. Oh yeah, and this, and this is written by, this one's written by doctors, Dr. Spencer Johnson, the founder of the values tales series is the author of this one. Oh, goody gum drops. And it says this tale is about Christopher Columbus, whose curiosity led to the discovery of the new world.

The story that follows is based on the events of his life, more historical facts and we found on page 63, that's where the one page biography goes. So here we go, we already going over the opening paragraph here, immediately with the fallacy that he discovered the new world, despite the fact that there were plenty of people living in it already and the fact that there had already, you know, been a section of the new world colonized by Europeans 500 years earlier, but you know, what the fuck ever, he discovered the new world, right? You know, and that's two separate continents, bunch of countries.

There's a lot of there. Yeah. Yeah. I colonization fun. The Vikings got here first. Get over it. The Vikings got here first. They just weren't giant fucking, like, I mean, they were always going to be dicks, but.

So here, just like you pointed out when we did your book. The story begins with once upon a time, which is at least acknowledging that this everything from this point forward is a bullshit fairy tale and not anything based on reality. And unlike your book, which began with a fully like, well, I guess she was still technically a teenager, but like she was grown, she was a grown fucking woman. She's a grown ass woman. Well, we're beginning with a little boy once upon a time long ago, some long ago that most people still thought the world was flat.

Truth buzzer goes off. That's actually incorrect. But whatever. There lived a little boy named Christopher Columbus. Yes. The Greeks had figured that shit out, you know, thousand years plus before and even regular sailors looking at the horizon and the end the way this I was like, they figured this shit out a long time ago.

Nobody really thought the world was a little smaller than it was in the fucking Renaissance. Well, no, I mean, that's another thing, too. The Greeks actually got the size of the earth almost completely correct because they were really good at measuring shit and math like that Pythagoras guy. He knew some stuff. Yeah. So he was actually, he was actually. But a lot of that knowledge was lost because friggin Oh, for so, so, so many reasons.

So again, there lived a little boy whose real name was Christopher Christopher Columbus. Little Christopher like to stand out the window at his father's weaving shop and look out at the port city of Genoa, Italy. What do you suppose Christopher saw when he looked out? And what do you suppose he thought about questions? So what did he what do you think he saw when he looked out of his father's weave shop? See a river of sewage flowing by the misery of human suffering. I was going to go with he saw a new worlds to plunder.

Well, they're not even getting that ambitious kill. He just saw boats. He saw boats. He saw boats. No, once again, do you what a magical, amazing things you think he saw when he looked out the window boats, boats, you saw some boats, he was like, cool, I really like fucking boats. Why he saw ships in the harbor. And he thought about how they sailed off to far away places.

Of course, the ships didn't sail as far then as they do now. In those days, the sailors did not like to lose sight of land. Yeah, it was a good way to die back then. Yeah, no shit. One day, Christopher and his little brothers went down to the wharf to get a closer look at the ships. You know, said one of Christopher's brothers, you sail too far from shore, you'll end up in the sea of darkness where no stars ever shine.

When monsters hide out there in the dark, said the other little brother, there's an ocean of seaweed that catches ships and holds them there so they never get away. I wonder if all that's really true, said Christopher. He's wondering if his brother's no shit about shit. Ends up they don't. Yeah. Spoiler. And so then the little boys decide to go hang out with some sailors.

Oh, so they learned some new language. Never nothing bad happened to these small, adorable, cherub-faced little boys with these horny, rough Italian sailors. Excuse me, called Christopher to the men. Can you tell us if the stories about the sea of darkness are true? And if there really is an ocean of seaweed that catches ships and holds them forever? Are there monsters out there? If ships sail too far out, can they fall off the edge of the world?

One of the sailors chuckled. We can have some fun with these youngsters, he whispered to a friend. And then you need to see the look on this guy's face. Look at that smile. Oh my God, he looks like he is going to eat them. Yes, he has- Get in my mouth, children. He has disarticulated his jaws like a python and this giant, wide-eyed mouth is opening up.

The sailor made a scary face. It's all true, he said. There are islands in the sea of darkness that appear and disappear like magic. You can hear bells ringing under the sea and see ghostly horses race over the waves. The terrible seaweed stretches for miles, waiting to snare on wary ships. It's frightening out there, little mates. Very frightening indeed. Christopher agreed.

This was very frightening. Just the same, he decided that when he grew up, he'd go out to sea to find out of himself what was true and what wasn't. All right, so jumping ahead, our young hero here decides that he wants to be a ship's captain one day, so he signs up to be a cabin boy, and he goes out to sea as a little kid where I'm sure he wasn't abused, molested, or horribly mistreated in any way. Sure, it was great. He loved it so much that he wanted to- It just shows him delivering a tray of dinner

to the captain who looks like a jolly, curly-haired dude. But now we're going to meet our- Oh, he's serving him dinner all right. Oh yeah, y'all. And now we're going to meet our cartoon sidekick. So as you can see in this lovely illustration here, a seagull flies down to the side of the boat. He has a seagull friend. Well, of course.

Well, you know, that might actually be legit if you feed them enough seagulls, we'll follow you around. Oh, the seagulls were there all the time, and that's certainly true enough. So here he is, little boy. He was standing at the rail one day, looking out at the water, when a seagull swooped down and landed almost at his elbow. Hi, Chris, said the bird. My name's C, C-Gull, and it's literally spelled S-E-E, C-Gull.

I've been watching you, and you look like as if you're thinking some very important thoughts. I'm curious, just what are you thinking about? Christopher blinked. I didn't know that seagulls talked. I've decided to give him this, I guess, for some reason, like Charles Dickens' British orphan accent instead of this little, he should sound like Mario from Super Mario Brothers instead.

But whatever. See, in my head, he's the bird from the Little Mermaid. I think it would be a little too distracting if I was like, I didn't know that a seagulls talked. That's a spicy meat-the-bow. So I'm not going to do that. So instead, he's a little Dickensian waif. Christopher blinked.

I didn't know that seagulls talked, said he. But then he laughed out loud. Of course, seagulls didn't talk. This particular seagull was just a make-believe friend. It was Christopher himself having fun pretending that he could chat with a bird. So in this version, at least, he's a little boy and having an imaginary friend, especially to escape from the trauma of the cabin boy. He's having a little dissociative episode to not think about the things that happened

in the captain's cabin. Again, he's a little cabin boy on a ship, far off at sea. Look at this adorable little face. He might just be like, the only friend is the birds. Look at his face. His little round child face. This little seagull is his only escape from this nightmare. You know, give him his.

So this is where the bird teaches him his virtue that he's going to teach the rest of us. Oh, God. His virtues are already been taken. Oh, yeah. This little boy doesn't have any virtue left. Well, Mr. Gull, said Christopher, I was really, you could call me sea, interrupt the bird. That's what they named me because I like to fly around and see things.

You understand how it is. I'm curious. Curious, said Christopher. I don't know what that word means, but it means I have a lot of curiosity, said the bird, completely unhelpfully. Because when you try to define a word by using the word, fuck you. It's like, thanks. Thanks for telling me what that means.

You dickhead. I wonder about things and I try to find out about them. Well, said Christopher, I guess I have lots of curiosity myself. I was just wondering what's on the other side of the ocean. That's great, said C. When will you try to find out? Just as soon as I can, answered Christopher. And boom, instant, we have now jumped in time and now he looks like the big nose dude from the cover.

Cool. Shit happens. We can't talk about that shit because it's very upsetting. Yes. The dark years where Christopher had to get his revenge on those who violated his childhood virtue. So it says here that he became, he kept on sailing and ships and studying maps and charts and became a quite the map maker himself.

And his imaginary seagull friend is still with him to help him repress his childhood trauma because now he's the one with the cabin boys, not the other way around. The cycle continues. I'm finding out more about the world all the time, said Christopher, and that makes me feel very good. Me too, laugh seagull. This writing is just the best. So this part shows Christopher is reading about the travels of Marco Polo and his journey

to an eastern land called the Indies where there was gold and silk and spices. So soon after this, Christopher was walking on the beach. To his surprise, he found an unusual piece of carved wood and some strange plant pieces. They had been washed up by the waves. Christopher picked up the wood. How odd, he said. I've never seen anything like this before. It's wood.

Neither have I, said seagull. And I've fled a lot the places in the many things. Christopher put the wood in his pocket and he picked up the pieces of plant. Come on see, he said. We'll try to find out about these things. So they go and find some white beard old dude in this picture here. Okay, and he's grown at this point. He's a grown-ass man.

Oh yeah, he's a grown-ass man. I'm going, I wonder where this wood, this is, I've never seen this wood before. He's a successful map maker. Well, apparently it's a carved place of wood. It looks like some kind of little totemic object of some kind. Okay, all right, that makes a little more sense. It's like, I've never seen this wood before. It said carved wood, but it didn't really say, it's literally, he found a carving washed

up on the shore. So he's trying to take it out, take it to the scholar and nobody knows where it came from. But after a while, Christopher thought he knew where they came from. Do you know? It's going to be something really fucking boring. This is the best part. They came from the other side of the ocean, he exclaimed.

The book about Marco Polo's travels is a true story. He really did see the land called the Indies and it was filled with strange things and odd plants and trees. Suppose the wisest navigators are right. Suppose the world really is round like an apple. So again, with the complete myth. So they didn't, they didn't bother to research this shit at all, did they? Well, this is, I mean, to be fair, this is exactly how I learned it in grade school too.

Like it wasn't until, I don't think I was until high school that I actually had it dispelled to me the idea that, you know, the Christopher Columbus. Okay. So why do we teach children history is wrong? Because I think I was 17 when we had the big 500 year, you know, the, the 500 year anniversary of 1492 and they did a lot of Christopher Columbus movies and, you know, documentaries and shit. And that's the first time I heard the, just because, you know, there is a, there is a

person to blame for this particular piece of bullshit, by the way, this is where I can show up and we can blame him for a lot of stuff because he, I mean, this ties back to our very, very first episode ever about George Washington because there is an American author who just wrote a bunch of bullshit that became like his Benning Grain in American school children ever since that was Washington Irving. Oh, that asshole. Yeah. Yeah.

He's, he's the one that came up with the whole George Washington cherry tree tree. Yeah. It's like, he's the one who came up. He's the reason that children believe bullshit. It's like, why do we want to teach that? He's the one that thinks that Christopher Columbus, you know, thought that was trying to disprove that the world was flat. Even though that was like globes existed as a thing, like their objects, their globes

older than Christopher Columbus that were in use, even if they weren't exactly accurate. So that was, this is just a weird old idea. Anyway, but almost everybody says it's flat, Seagull declared. So anyway, he goes on arguing with his imaginary friend saying, no, no, no, this is right. And this, and this stuff that I found is totally from the Indies. And so, so he is going to come up with this plan to, to prove his theory of the world being round. Terrific idea, cried Seagull, but then the bird looked a bit worried.

But what about the The of Darkness? He said, doesn't it gear you? And I realized this is Seagull is apparently Bullwinkle's first cousin. I realized I'm just basically doing a Bullwinkle accent. Whatever. It's fine. It's fine. Of course it does, admitted Christopher, but I'm curious.

And I, and if I want to find the truth, I have to take some chances and get a lot of other people killed with me. Oh God. It just, it all just kind of hurts. It's causing like actual physical pain. Well, if you must, you must, said Seagull. But if you're going to fail to the other side of the ocean, you're going to need money for ships and supplies.

So then there's illustrations of Chris running around to various European monarchs trying to hit them up for money. And then we see one queen with her big thumbs down while she's laughing in his face. Just kind of my favorite one. Seagull, you fuck you, dude. Especially if he really was going around like, I can prove the world isn't flat. We know that dumbass. Now I know, I know from my own deal that the very first place he tried was Portugal because

he was married to a Portuguese wife and that was where he was kind of set up for a while. But eventually, of course, famously, he found sponsors in with, you know, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain, Spain and Castile. So he was a Italian, he was an Italian citizen of Portugal who finally got a royal commission from King Ferdinand was a giant loser piece of shit. And his wife was a badass. Unfortunately, she took all that badassery so she could like, dislike Muslims a lot and fight. But, but did she have green hair like in this illustration?

That's amazing. She has got green ass hair. Queen Isabella of Castile and Spain should not have had green hair. Now here is the most exciting paragraph in children's books ever. Christopher Columbus waited while Isabella and Ferdinand thought it over. He waited and waited and waited. He waited for six years. And a paragraph.

He waited for six years. And then he just literally is like taught in this he's just talking to himself and his imaginary bird just like whining about how how they're not curious enough. How can she be curious about green hair dye and not the other side of the world? Maybe it's because she already knows the earth round. So page 24. Christopher had almost given up hope when word came at last. Queen Isabella was now very, very curious.

Ding ding ding. About the far side of the ocean. I guess we could do the drinking game version where every time we say the word. She was giving Columbus three ships. And of course every American school child knows the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. And the supplies he would need for his first voyage. Well, that's true. He did get those ships.

He did get supplies he needed. That's so far. It's that solid accurate. At first Columbus was delighted, but this is one of our great questions. But then he found out that getting the ships was the easiest part. What do you think was going to be harder? At least this honestly, this one's not as condescending as the last one. Yeah.

Maybe it was because he had. He has hit a penis and he's worthy of immediate respect. And she was just like whiny. It's unfair instead. It's unfair. What's wrong with you people? Aren't you curious? You're not brave and curious like me.

Even though I don't even know if it was written with sex, it really seems like they're just trying to shoehorn the keyword into the book as many times as possible. So we got to have the word curious. So anyway, showing that she had to go, I'm it's not fair. So here we have a weird Burger King's kids club of sailors that he's talking to trying to convince them all to risk almost certain deaths sailing off the edge of the map of the flat. Well, they have to go.

They have to go do it for their burger king. And of course, here is the illustration of what these people truly believe that there was a flat earth with fucking giant purple dragons and shit. Man, they're going to be so disappointed. This is a psychedelic nightmare. These dragons like proportionally sized are like cosmic Cthulhu like monstrosities. Like this thing could literally these could eat the earth like a pizza the way it's illustrated in this book.

Nice. I may have to take a picture of this to be like the cover image. So now he's trying to talk this group of sailors into going with him. We'll never reach the indies warned one man. There are monsters beyond the sea of darkness. There's huge monsters who can swallow whole ships moaned a third sailor even if the monsters don't get us. We're doomed.

If we go too far said a fourth man game over. Remember I didn't I did that last part myself. Remember that the world is flat. We sail off the edge will be lost forever. Then Columbus asked a bunch of dumbasses. Then Columbus asked a very good question. How could anyone know about monsters are the edge of the world if no one had ever sailed there before.

Ha ha. I win. Losers. Get in the boat. No one's ever come back. I've out argued you. You work for me now. Say that's right shouted a seaman.

If we want to know what's true we have to go find out for ourselves. I've gotten to wondering. I'm too curious to say home. Ding ding ding ding. I'll make the budget. I need a hotel bell to ring every time. I'll take I have one I'll get one later for next time. Good for you said Columbus.

There's something else you might like to know. Queen Isabella is offering a rich reward to all who sailed with me. Was that a bunch of bullshit. Yes. And so the men agreed to go and Columbus had his crew and here we go the year on August 3rd 1492 the three ships sailed out of the Spanish Harbor of Palos. Columbus was full of hope. He even carried with him letters from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to the emperors

of the Indies. All right that tracks that's actually true. Yeah the ship sailed west. The ship sailed west and they carried letters on and on they went until the land disappeared behind them and the sea stretched around them in all directions a silence had come over the men they now knew that no ship had ever before come so far then suddenly a man cried out in fright an ocean of seaweed he shouted we're sailing right into it game over man seaweed it will catch us cried a second man will never get away it seemed true there was

seaweed on the surface of the ocean for as far as the eye could see the sailors were sure that the seaweed had roots growing all the way down to the bottom of the sea they thought that the ships would get tangled in the weed they feared they would never escape don't worry said Christopher look at that seaweed it's not thick it's just floating on top of the water you stupid illiterate bastards we can sail right through it I might be embellishing slightly and sure enough the ships did self sail through as they went Columbus noticed something interesting he scooped up a handful of the weed and showed it to the sailors what do you think they saw seaweed well in this case he's holding a big

handful of seaweed and there's a little like stereotypical red crab standing on top of the weed okay so the weed has seen see the little crab on the seaweed said Columbus how can land be far away when such creatures are crawling around here have faith we must be nearing the indies that was completely unscientific and bullshitting yeah and yes see life doesn't exist see life doesn't exist not oh not outside of sight of land I love there they didn't research anything at all however the men felt better just because Columbus made up some bullshit they even began to be curious says the book but when Columbus put the crab back on the seaweed and went off by himself his face was serious and sober so even the book knows he's

full of shit and just trying to keep himself from getting there's a little thing called mutiny that sometimes would happen on a ship he was really hoping that didn't happen to him because it usually didn't end well for the captain yeah so I hope that little crab is a land creature Christopher said to see we've been at sea so long sometimes I begin to wonder if we'll ever see land again so you gotta love it he's so he's completely bullshitting them he's like no no don't worry when you do something you've never done before it's bound to be scary said see but it's a good thing we have brave curious people like you Christopher we'd never find out anything so it's awesome that these guys are all probably gonna die because let us not forget

he's like the book is trying to say he's just trying to prove the world is round and is part of his way to get to the indies but either way he's wrong he's a hundred percent wrong about getting to the indies about what size the earth is whatever and so these these sailors working are going to have every reason to believe he's going to get them killed yeah yeah it's a true story and he almost did yeah we reached the point now where um there's giant horrible storms and his imaginary um seagull's wing gets injured how does your when you're such a shitty he's such a great captain and even your imaginary friends are getting injured in this expedition

so how bad does the actual sailors have it question mark question mark well the you know the ships are tossed around then everything goes calm the raging sea became as calm as a pond the sailors were quiet they were frightened do you know why no wind at all would frighten the sailors just as much as a heavy gale uh i do the doldrums yeah because they were on sailing vessels and wind is kind of important when you're sailing that's right says the next page without any wind in the sails the ship was becalmed it wouldn't move at all don't get all fucking technical on us whoa the sailors began to mutter to themselves we'll never get home said one man we'll stay here in the middle of ocean until we all die

so they all start freaking out the men are watching the dolphins play in the water while uh they're all waiting around to die that happens that is a hazard when all you have is a sailing vessel how long will we be becalmed in these unknown seas christopher wondered aloud there's no way to tell said see that's what makes it so scary yeah and that's why the vikings got there first because they rode they had boats with paddles finally after many days a gentle wind began to blow they were traveling on again and little waves were slapping against the hull of the ship the men on deck could laugh again and wonder what they would find when they reached the indies even sea's imaginary wing felt better i added the imaginary part because i love how it says

he's imaginary but also treats it like it's real which is dumb ah internal logic whatever it's bad writing jayme it's bad the imaginary bird will soon be able to fly again thank god never mind that guy who got tossed over the side in the middle of the storm or the other one who died of scurvy it's about to say uh lots and lots of people died on this expedition yeah not a whole lot of them made it back they've skipped that part so far the only in the only uh casualty is the imaginary seagull's wing okie dokie and so they sailed at a good speed for many days then at last they heard the sound they've been waiting for a cannon boom from one of the ships land shouted a sailor i see land but when christopher and the other men looked

out across the water they saw no land the sailor had been mistaken there was no safe harbor it's like ashen kutcher stay ashen kutcher stands on the prowl of the ship you've been pumped y'all still kidding there was just miles and miles of more water they sailed on there was nothing else they could do but now the crew didn't feel frightened they didn't feel curious either how do you suppose they felt mad as fuck oh you are correct bingo they are angry we want to go home they shouted to columbus you don't turn the ships around we will that mutiny thought see and now we can listen to the imaginary seagull's thoughts that's that's such bad writing we have zero perspective point of view or sense of what our third person narrator is doing here but whatever

so we're now reading the thoughts of the imaginary seagull you'll go to prison if you do that shout columbus to sailors who totally gave a fuck we don't care cried the men and this is the moment of truth for christopher columbus in history because he very very easily could have been tossed over the side of the boat desperate columbus tried to awaken the sailor's curiosity no they didn't have enough supplies to turn around they would die don't you want to find out what's on the other side of the ocean he asked don't you want to go home and tell your children and grandchildren that you were the first ones to sail to the indies what and then the next sailor makes a really good point they already had they already knew they already could sail to the indies if we don't turn

back we may never see our children and grandchildren again said the men making a completely logical point they'd already been to the indies it was not a magical place this was just a different way it already been there he was trying to find a shorter route that's all because he thought he knew how to do uh measure the size of the earth better than greek mathematicians and he was wrong and he was fucking wrong he was wrong about a lot of things so columbus is still trying to keep himself alive let's sail for three more days said columbus if we don't sight land by then we'll turn back the men grumbled and muttered but they agreed to sail on and now here's here's a great part we must be getting near the place where the world ends said one man he listened for the

thunder of the waterfall that would surely take place when the ocean poured over the edge of the world he began to tremble i don't hear anything yet he said hopefully yeah i love it we suddenly just switched to some random sailor i hate all of the story it's really disjointed but i don't see any land either all i see is water if there is land ahead i wonder what it'll be like will it be the indies will it be golden palaces i don't think there is any land said a third man we'll have to turn back suddenly the men heard a noise high above them it was a soft hurrying flapping noise what do you suppose it was birds yay birds birds birds shouted a heavy sailor it's a flock of birds it left cried sea that means there's land land nearby the sailors cheered for for of course

the imaginary seagull that they couldn't see or hear was correct birds couldn't fly endlessly over an ocean they needed a place to land and rest their wings at last they were close to land so the ships changed course and they followed the birds and now they were so close to safety the men began to wonder what kind of place was it that they were coming to so we're still in the boats we're really dragging this this last little bit out because i guess they don't want to talk too much about what happened well they're on land too much yeah what do they do when they get what do you think what do they do on land well they soon knew that it was a place where they saw trees and bushes and lots of green growing things where they saw twigs and leaves and fresh little red

berries growing in the float sorry floating in the water not growing it won't be long now they said eagerly night fell but not one of them thought of sleeping they all watched then suddenly one of them in saw something a dark mass rising from the water very black and huge was it a monster the cannon boomed and the crew came running eager to see land they shouted land ahead and this time it was for real so there's a silhouette of an island there it was at last a small island lay just before them rising up out of the water the flags were raised on all three ships the cannon boomed again so loudly that the sleepy moon seemed to stir a bit so they're in the middle of night they were like land let everyone shoot the moon so they fire their cannons at the moon who apparently

was frightened because it says it seemed to stir a bit we will conquer the moon we will conquer the moon perhaps it looked down and asked what these men were doing there and why they were making so much noise sure okay okay I'm glad we used that that was the best paragraph for historical fiction it's beautiful isn't it said Columbus to see I was beginning to be afraid we'd never get here I wonder what it's like Columbus wasn't the only one who was curious deeming the entire crew had crowded against the railings to look at the island they could hardly wait until morning so now here we go our fateful rowboat full of europeans oh the sun is happy for them the moon was pissed off but the sun's the sun's the moon's like you're like nothing nothing bad's ever gonna

happen because of this the moon was disturbed as it should be the moon is wiser than the sun apparently there's no way this is gonna end in slavery and genocide um at dawn Columbus and some of his men climbed into a small boat sea perched on the prow and they rode toward the shore Columbus reached inside his coat to make sure his important letters were safe because you know everybody knows yeah whoever the whoever the fuck they're gonna meet can totally read Spanish they're just gonna read it and like it yep they were the letters of greeting that queen Isabella had given him he was to present them to the emperor of india and the emperor of china Christopher Columbus was in for a surprise

it's the end of the page he was in his place he was in he was completely could not have been more wrong he was so surprised although he did not even get anything right away because he was done no well according to this he was completely he was shocked that not a single emperor was waiting for him on the beach like you'd expect emperors to do yeah wait for strangers but he did notice that the plants and stuff matched the ship that was floating around in the ocean and then the bushes moved someone was hiding there they were probably waiting in ambush because these fuckers will come up well look at this picture of happiness and goodness well here's the truth the truth is the natives apparently were quite friendly and generous uh to the people who just showed up uh so let's

just go with their version before we because this is the part where i know we're gonna start getting upset so let's just read it for a little bit and this is where the book takes a turn quote why these must be indians said columbus when some people with red brown skin came out to greet him columbus had made a very natural mistake he thought he had landed in the indies so even though these people didn't look a bit like the yellow skin people that marco polo had described he called them indians yep i love how it literally the the paragraph within this one paragraph it revealed why he was dumb for thinking and saying this yet also saying it was a very natural mistake it's a very natural mistake but again in in this version they've never been to india so

well that's the thing though he they said they can't make up their mind about that part no they can't it's it changed their mind just like it changed their mind in this paragraph whether it makes any sense for him to think this or not whatever now of course you know where columbus actually had landed don't you maybe don't you where is he where is he um south america no well this of course they just say he's in america he was on the island of san salvador off the coast of america now here's okay well i'm just gonna read this off the coast of america because off the coast of america there's only one america it's fine the america the america well there's nothing more american than saying there's only one america bambi but that's not where he was the islanders

were very friendly they didn't seem to mind being called indians well they probably didn't because they had no idea what the fuck these people were saying they didn't do to my being called indians and no one's ever had a problem with his sense everything's fine and they showed their island off to columbus they showed him some neighboring islands too they couldn't show him any emperors or great cities or gold they didn't have any i'm a little disappointed said columbus to see that's okay because you know what he's gonna go back to spain and spain will will they will rape and pillage and kill the land until they finally find gold so okay let's let's just blaze through this part real quick see was quite well by now thank god his his imaginary wing healed after

the storm and no longer had a baby so he says when you're curious and you go looking for anther you may not find the one that you expect he said that's part of the excitement i hope queen isabella will be excited said columbus and i hope she'll like what we found so after looking around for several months columbus and his crew set sail for home they had lots of interesting things to show to the queen trees and plants even some of the indians went back with columbus they were curious too and wanted to see what they would and see what was on the other side of the ocean they were curious and so they just volunteered and came with them it was great yep it was all fine the voyage back to spain was stormy but at last they arrived home with their strange cargos

we did it the sailors said proudly we didn't turn back we were with columbus and we found a new land the sailors hurried home to tell their families that they hadn't fallen off the edge of the world hooray yeah one of those ships sank they didn't all come back well that's not what it says here oh wow yeah however it only just but it to be fair it only shows one ship unloading so they were excited to tell everyone that they hadn't fallen off the edge of the world or been eaten by giant lovecraftian space monsters we i have been to the other side of the ocean christopher told queen isabella i have found strange new land and i have brought back many interesting things and people for you here have some willing participants then columbus showed the queen's

advisors a map he had made it was like no other map made before it showed the ocean and the island he had seen on the far side i love in the illustration here look at this incredibly perfect map of north america i know this is a true map said columbus i made it only after i'd been to these islands myself i am sure though that there are other places where no one has ever been who will draw the maps to these other places who has enough curiosity needing to go to find out about them i am not a sailor said the queen but i am full of curiosity and i will help you and once again i'm gonna go i'm going with a very uh you're going with a very british with a very british queen instead of um yeah queen victoria i'll see to it that you can sail to the new world and

have found just as often as you wish even then columbus did not know what a truly great discovery he had made until his voyage no one in europe had ever even suspected that there were two huge continents north and south america on the other side of the ocean they never suspected but he drew a map to it perfectly perfectly well that's how good he was later with the help of with the help of the wise queen christopher sailed back to america three more times he continued to be curious he continued to try to learn new things even when he didn't find anything he knew it was fun just to look because christopher was curious he opened the way for later explorations and because he was curious we will never forget christopher columbus now you may wonder about the value of curiosity

in your own life is there something you would like to know learn more about like for example how columbus had a had a gold collection quota for the young men of the island he visited and if they didn't make their quota he would chop off their hands and make them wear around their neck as an ornament of their failure i'm super curious about that or how he was offered a native girl on one of his first nights there and brutally raped her so that it is literally ends whatever you decide to do let's hope it is something that will make you happier just like our curious friend christopher columbus if you know genocide makes you happy i just say go for it thanks book oh wow it's gross i'm i'm not a fan they okay so they made the world dumber him smarter

sort of even though he still admitted he didn't find what he was looking for and completely ignored you know the depopulation genocide harsh enslavement uh warfare disease well i mean if you're gonna be curious about something at least get the could you have been like curious about history because that would have been neat to include at least a couple of facts in there now it's like they got the date he left right yeah that that was that was an actual fact uh so birthday right because they didn't get now he buys birthday right um well let's see let's just look real quick uh according to the wikipedia on good old christopher columbus what says he was born between august 25th and the 31st of 1451 so they don't know and that's

that's exactly what it says in the first paragraph of the historical facts page here so got that right i mean it looks like they got the basic nuts and bolts here quickly even though i see a very uh obvious formatting mistake that their typesetter should have been fired for um but yeah interestingly enough so but here the the historical facts ends right after they find land and then just mentions he made three more visits back and that's it it's like we don't want to talk about all this other stuff and be realistic because we don't want to talk about that kids don't really it's like that's gonna make the columbus day celebrations really awkward and that's why i have been on board even even long before my personal like political self change i have

i've been on board the christopher columbus was an asshole trained since college i mean there's just no defending some of the shit he did there was no defending any of the shit he did and he set any he kind of set a standard of how these indigenous people would be treated by the europeans from this point going forward the columbian exchange led to a lot of really awful shit we have sophisticated weaponry that they don't yeah and i think here we are in the year of our lord uh 2021 where our president uh joe biden just made some sort of proclamation about yesterday being indigenous peoples day officially i still didn't i didn't see how that all shook out but apparently at least indigenous peoples day is being given equal standing to columbus now i guess

that's good maybe i don't know i don't know i was happy enough that during the uh during our little uprising we had last year a shitload of chris columbus statues got ripped down nice and i'm cool with that because uh the only christopher columbus we liked is the director of the first harry potter movie and home alone yeah that chris columbus is is pretty is pretty good yes that's the christopher columbus i like i do not like the christopher columbus of this book or a stupid little fucking seagull his his injured seagull his he injured his imaginary friend we spent dick christopher columbus i was amazed that we spent like actual real estate in a very limited number of words on this book about a big historical figure about the injury and recovery

of an imaginary seagull and learning its innermost thoughts so this is a prequel to jonathan livingston seagull starring a mentally sort of the the forest gump of the seagull world hanging out with christopher columbus oh my god he he's not even smart enough to hang out with scuttle from the little mermaid yeah i didn't go with a scuttle like voice yeah so uh i think the two books that we've done so far you did nely bligh i did christopher columbus and i think it really i think we've we've kind of shown both the high and low bars set by this series like nely bligh for that books all its fault it was well intentioned it was trying to you know talk up a you know a woman who didn't get a lot of recognition and then of course now he deserves it yeah and then on the

other side we got christopher columbus someone who's been over celebrated and it completely white washes and scrubs clean all the shit he did and just pretends like he was this great visionary even though he was a dumbass who didn't even find what he was looking for and was completely wrong like he didn't discover san salvador because he was smart and knew it was going to be there it he literally looked into that if they'd been sailing a different way like all could have died possibly all those men would have been completely within their rights to string him to the mast and to turn their asses back around correct uh so but here we are so fuck christopher columbus yeah fuck christopher columbus um that book sucks uh i'm gonna i'm gonna give it one star

despite my dramatic reading i did not improve the fact this book blows uh so sorry doctors dr johnson uh this is not a a winner it's not a good book this was yeah you it's a one star book yo and it's always saying so it's like okay if we're gonna take the lessons to heart here the value of curiosity is to just be so curious you're willing to risk the lives of others and a completely wrong hunch and then just steal all the credit and glory uh when you're fuck up and you just like happen to you know come up smelling like roses even though you were 100 percent wrong pretty much yep so um so yeah be curious fuck over your friends risk the lives of others fuck other people over and then steal all the glory you can while setting the stage for

horrific colonization don't forget the raping in the in the killing yeah and then and not only that but even when you and leaving behind provisional government that'll keep it going so that even if you're not there to directly oversee the rape and the mutilation and the enslavement you know it's still happening in yeah you've put good people in charge all right well i feel like i need a shower after talking about christopher columbus as if he is someone to be overly praised yeah i liked my book better than yours yeah no i i deliberately picked one that would that was gonna suck it was on theme so uh yeah thank you for everybody listening uh supporting us on patreon um we will have a more regular episode of patreon well regular

episode of patreon a regular episode of chainsaw history will be coming your way soon along with more bonus content uh more children's books and more shenanigans okay bye see ya