• Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOPM
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    1 year ago

    I’m pretty sure he didn’t discover it, what with people having lived there for tens of thousands of years.

    • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I discovered a new restaurant last week. It’s been around for decades but it was new to me. I can’t remember the first time I tasted a tomato or potato, but to the Europeans it must have been amazing! And don’t forget chocolate!

      You are correct about the thriving and ancient civilizations in the “New World” of course. Getting olives and oranges and figs, even horses, doesn’t feel like enough compensation for what happened to them…

    • lugal@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I never got this semitic discussion. I can discover a cabin in a forest or a store in a city but Columbus can’t discover a continent because he wasn’t the first one who discovered it?

      • saltesc@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        As far as I care, “discovered” is in relation to cartography, at which point most societies know of it and its location.

        Anything else is just pathetic semantics that could go back through evolution and the chronology of Earth’s continents and geography. No one wants that except a couple of Actually Guys.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOPM
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          1 year ago

          As far as I care, “discovered” is in relation to cartography, at which point most societies know of it and its location.

          Well then you can’t go with Columbus. Basically no one in Asia or Africa knew what he did, let alone both of the Americas and Australia. So unless you define Europe as the only place with societies, Columbus doesn’t even come close.

          • lugal@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            most societies

            I would change this to “a society” so Columbus discovered America for the European society while other societies already knew it or still didn’t

      • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        This would have more merit if he ever set foot in North America. He landed in the Bahamas. It’s technically part of the North American tectonic plate, but so is part of Iceland.

    • LoboAureo@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      The gravity was there from the beginning of time, but Newton discovered it.

      English is not my first language but as long as you specify for who, you can use discover, like "I discovered this movie last year, it’s my new favorite movie since then’ and the movie was published 40 years ago.