Columbus

Columbus is probably another one of those "American Continent  history people that get a lot less attention in Europe. Since "Columbus Day" was just yesterday in the US, I figured we'd tackle some Columbus myths. I'll admit that Columbus is a bit of a sore subject for me, (I don't think you'll find many people with even a fraction of a percentage of Amerindian decent singing his praises), so I'm not going to go on about what he actually did once he got here, these are just going to myths about his first trip.

1) He proved the earth was round, when everyone in his time thought it was flat.

2) His ships were named the "Nina," the "Pinta," and the "Santa Maria."

3) His trip was the only big thing to happen in 1492. 

1) He proved the earth was round, when everyone in his time thought it was flat.

I tackled a big chunk of this myth in This Pancake Earth.  Columbus's contemporaries weren't worried about him falling off the end of the world -- they were worried about running out of supplies and dying of dehydration and starvation. Columbus thought that he'd be sailing something like 2,400 - 3000 miles,when in actuality he was looking at a a distance closer to 11,000 miles. [*] His contemporaries knew the actual distance, Columbus was just bad at math.

There are times that I'm forced to wonder that if you don't know what's impossible  there's no limit to what you can't do. 

2) His ships were named the "Nina," the "Pinta," and the "Santa Maria."

This one is only partially wrong. The Santa Maria was actually called the Santa Maria -- except for when she was called the Gallega. That was her original name, but later she was renamed to La Santa María de la Inmaculada Concepción -- shortened to Santa Maria. [**]

The Nina was actually named the Santa Clara, but was nicknamed "La Niña  by her crew. It meant "the little girl," which makes sense in two contexts. First of all, she was a smaller ship than the other "Saint" ship on the trip, the Santa Maria. Secondly, her owners name was Juan Niño. [***] So she was "little man"'s "little girl."

The Pinta is a little trickier. We know her nickname was Pinta, but we don't know what her actual ship-name was. Pinta means "painted lady" ... as in "prostitute." (I don't know about your school, but that was totally skipped over in my elementary school.) [****]

3) His trip was the only big thing to happen in 1492. 

While in the US, it's the only thing that is flagged with importance for that year, there were two other very important historical events that year. It really does seem to be the year that was All About Spain: 

In January, the Granada War came to an close, ending a 780 year presence of Islamic Moor government in Spain. [*****] 

Six months later, in July, Spain's Alhambra Decree expels all Jewish citizens who refuse to convert to Catholicism. [******] Fun fact! This decree wasn't revoked until 1968.