His plan is to sail WEST
AWAY from where Asia is
and then . . . be in Asia.
Now, granted
everyone has known the world is round since Greece
but see the problem
is that China is like twelve thousand miles to the west
a problem that Christopher Columbus solves
by doing his math wrong
and deciding it’s about three thousand miles instead.
ALL ABOARD THE SUCCESS TRAIN
WOOO WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Armed with this ambitious and totally legit scheme
Chris does what any modern gentleman would do:
He starts looking for venture capital.
He looks for it in pretty much every court in Europe
which is unfortunate for him
because Europe at this time
seems to be ruled primarily by sane people.
He finally ends up in Spain
where King Ferdinand also says no
and actually offers him big buxx to stay in Spain
either as a court jester
or as a solid to the other kings he would’ve bugged.
But suddenly, after several years
and a million more identical pitches from Chris
King Ferdinand is like “YOU KNOW WHAT
THIS SUDDENLY SOUNDS AMAZING.
LET’S RIDE THIS FUCKIN’ SUCCESS TRAIN
CHUGGA CHUGGA.”
Here are the terms that Columbus demands:
1. 10 percent of revenue from any place he discovers
(which is a pretty standard agent rate)
2. Governorship over same lands
3. The title of GREAT ADMIRAL OF THE OCEAN.
Meanwhile, Poseidon rolls in his watery grave.
So Sea King Columbus sets out on his voyage.
He ends up doing four of them
and they go bizarrely fucking well for the guy
like, it turns out there’s land
pretty much right where he said it would be
and it’s full of people
who sort of look like the people he was looking for
so naturally he calls them Indians
because what else could they be
and then he spends the next decade taxing them
and mutilating the shit out of them when he’s bored.
His sons help
it’s a bonding experience.
Word gets back to Spain about the mutilating
and in what may be the only recorded instance
of anyone in Europe being nice to natives
they send an investigator to see if the rumors are true
and duh, they are
so they fire Columbus from being governor
and throw him in jail.
This is definitely a grand humanitarian gesture
and not a way to get out of paying Chris his 10 percent
that would be ridiculous.
But Chris’s son Diego seems to think that’s what’s up
so he files a bunch of lawsuits against Spain
which is dumb
because it’s hard as shit to sue the government.
Chris does get a couple bucks out of the deal, though
and he also gets to go down in history
as the dude who discovered America
and the dude who discovered that the world is round
and both of those things are totally wrong
but that’s okay
because so was Christopher Columbus.
So the moral of the story
is you can get into history the hard way
by being nice to people and right about things
or you can just shoot the moon and be terrible
which seems a hell of a lot easier.
THE ROANOKE COLONISTS FORGET TO LEAVE A FORWARDING ADDRESS
So Spain’s got all these dudes in America now
and England
whose main thing is HATING SPAIN
is like “No way are we gonna sit idly by
while those Spaniards ruin America all by themselves
we gotta get in on this.
First, we need someone as sucky as Chris Columbus.
OH HELLO THERE SIR WALTER RALEIGH.”
Sir Walter Raleigh is a government-sponsored pirate
who Queen Elizabeth hires
to SINGLEHANDEDLY COLONIZE AMERICA.
She seriously gives him a permit
that is like “This permit good for one America.
Use it or lose it, buddy.”
And use it he does.
He packs a bunch of radical dudes on a boat
off the coast of Virginia
(named after the Queen
whose name is not Virginia, but there you go)
and leaves them there
because he’s got better shit to do
than what he was hired to do.
Here’s the rub:
There are already other people in Virginia
and they’re not friendly!
(Probably because immediately after arriving
the colonists kill an entire tribe
for allegedly stealing a silver cup.
Savages, am I right?
Always stealing cups.)
So the colonists spend 100 percent of their time
fighting off angry natives
and when Raleigh drops by a couple years later
like “Hey, dudes, want a ride home?”
they are like “YES.”
So they all leave
a couple days before their reinforcements arrive
and the reinforcements are like “Screw this”
and they go home
but a couple of them have to stay
because remember:
Use it or lose it.
Back in England, Walter Raleigh is like
“I wonder how that colony is doing.
Probably it’s doing great.
I should send more dudes to start another colony!”
So he sends another 115 people
including women and children
to this totally safe place.
GUESS WHAT?
NOT ACTUALLY SAFE.
Everybody who stayed behind is now dead.
There’s a spooky skeleton and everything
so obviously these new colonists decide to stay
despite the fact that they are super low on food
and surrounded by enemies.
The food thing starts to be a real bummer though
so the governor of the colony
(a dude named John White
because fuck yeah, generic Anglo names)
is like “Okay, guys, I’m gonna run back to England
grab some food and be right back.”
THREE YEARS LATER
John White finally comes back with some food
like “OMG, guys, I am so sorry I’m late.
It was winter
and then I got a ride with some pirates
and got captured by the dudes we were trying to rob
and then the Spanish Armada came
and it’s just been a really stressful three years so
oh shit where did everybody go?”
Answer: NOBODY KNOWS.
The colonists are all just gone
no spooky skeletons
no houses
no charred remains of houses, even
it’s like everybody ju
st packed up and left.
Before John went to England, everybody agreed
that if they got murdered or something
they would carve a cross into a nearby tree
and there is stuff carved into trees
but it is not a cross
it is the word “CROATOA”
which is the name of a nearby island
which John is unable to explore because of a storm
so he just leaves
because mysteries are for chumps.
To this day, nobody agrees what happened
maybe the colonists had sex with the natives
maybe the natives ate the colonists
maybe the colonists were trying to carve a cross
but were just really bad at following directions.
Maybe it was goblins.
Who knows?
Regardless, the moral of the story is the same:
Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day.
Abandon a man on a swampy island
a thousand miles from help and home
and he will fucking die.
I WISH I COULD HAVE CRASHED THE FIRST THANKSGIVING
Okay, so there’re some extremely Christian dudes.
They’re in England and they hate it
I don’t blame them
England sucks.
So then they leave in some boats
and they go hit up Amsterdam
because they hear that’s where you get the good weed
but then their kids start to do really terrible shit
like learn Dutch
and maybe not be super Christian all the time?
and no amount of good weed is worth that
so they get on some MORE boats
called the Mayflower and the Speedwell
and they sail to AMERICA
except the Speedwell is ironically named
and is actually a slow-as-shit loserbarge
so it has to go home early
and miss the America party.
But it turns out that America is a terrible party
because step one of the party is wait on a boat
forEVER
getting hungry and perpetually seasick
but at least someone poops out a baby
which they name OCEANUS
which is OBJECTIVELY RAD.
But that’s the only objectively rad thing in this story
because when they show up in America
it is ULTRA WINTER
like if winter were to take steroids
and then craft for itself a robot ice suit
and team up with Mr. Freeze
to spew catchphrases and ice beams
all over the damn country
that would be about as bad as this winter
AND make for a way better movie.
See they were kind of hoping to find some like
good wholesome Christian white folks
in gated communities
with supermarkets and bowling alleys
but instead they get RUTHLESS WINTER
ALL DAY
ALL THE TIME
ALSO ALL NIGHT
and a ton of people die
because that is the true meaning of winter.
But some people survive the winter
including BRAVE CAPTAIN MILES STANDISH
and he goes out and finds him some Indians
because everyone still sorta thinks they’re in India
and one of the Indians is named Squanto
and he’s part of the Patuxet tribe
and not a Cherokee at all
but he still somehow knows about corn
so he teaches all the white dudes to plant it
and the white dudes are like “Gee, thanks, Squanto
we will definitely remember this solid you did us
and pay you back in kind forever and ever.”
Later, all the crops sprout
and the white dudes go into the forest
and shoot like A THOUSAND turkeys
(see, I TOLD you turkeys were important)
also some deers
(them too!)
and then they cut them all open
and invite EVERYBODY
and all the Indians show up
and bring crazy foreign shit to eat
like potatoes and squash and tomatoes
and everyone is so super jazzed about all this food
that they do not stop partying for THREE DAYS
and there are NINETY DUDES
and HOLY CRAP THAT IS A PARTY
and then the party is over
and the white dudes are like
“Okay, guys, that was great
but we’re totally killing you now
you know
for your land.”
And the Indians are like “Haha, joke’s on you
you can’t kill us if we DIE OF SMALLPOX FIRST.”
And then everyone decides to relive this occasion
every year
on an arbitrary Thursday
by producing more food
than they can safely consume
and then goading each other into eating it.
Also: families!
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
You see, the real moral of the story
is next time you wanna have a party
but you don’t have a good enough reason
maybe just have a party.
Seriously
your reasoning can’t be any worse than these dudes’.
(I actually really like Thanksgiving though.)
SALEM SETS LADIES ON FIRE
If I had to use just one sentence to sum up history
it would be:
“People in the past were pretty dumb.”
If I had to give an example
it would be the Salem Witch Trials.
Check it out:
All these Puritans are chilling in the New World
with their religious governments
and their no-nonsense clothes
and their chastity and whatever
when all of a sudden this girl starts having seizures
and blaming the woman who does her laundry
and everyone is like “OH NO, WITCHES.”
You have to understand that at this time in history
batshit loco was the thing to be
people had been believing in magic since forever
and they weren’t about to stop
but they HAD all decided that magic was evil
so they were definitely willing to kill any damn lady
who was acting sort of witchy.
Luckily for the washer lady
there’s this dude named Cotton Mather
who decides to cure this twitching child
by bringing her over to his house
and praying at her until she stops spazzing
and I guess Cotton Mather’s house is so crazy boring
that the chick sobers up real fast
and that’s the end of that problem.
NOT.
Because now children all over Massachusetts
know that seizures are a great way to get attention
so these two girls over in Salem Village
(not to be confused with Salem Town
which is right next door
and also part of this story
just to confuse you)
start flipping the literal hell out
all screaming, yelling, crawling under furnitu
re
you know
THE KIND OF DUMB SHIT KIDS DO
and when everyone is like “Stop being shitty!”
They’re like “We can’t because witches.”
So in an effort to get their children to shut up
the people of Salem arrest a homeless lady
an independent woman
and a slave named Tituba
who is too foreign and interesting to live
and this would all be fine
except that when you get arrested for witchcraft
the first thing they ask you is
“Hey, do you know any other witches?
Maybe we will go easy on you if you tell us.”
SO WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENS?
I’ll tell you.
What started out as a childish prank
rapidly becomes an unstoppable snowball of murder.
The more witches they arrest
the more witches those witches tell them about
and the more children start having freaky seizures
and blaming random people they don’t like.
And instead of being like “Oh damn
so many hangings
maybe we should slow down and do less hanging”
the people of Salem are like “OH DAMN
SO MANY WITCHES
BETTER RELAX OUR JUDICIAL STANDARDS.”
At this point it becomes legal to convict a person
based solely on what is called “spectral evidence.”
Here is what spectral evidence is:
Let’s say I don’t like you
because you cut in front of me at the Burger Barn
so I go to the Court of Oyer and Terminer in Salem
and I say, “Hey, last night I was in bed
and the spirit of Asshole McGee over there
[we’re assuming that’s your name
just for the sake of example]
flies into my room and starts punching my dick
OBVIOUSLY A WITCH.”
YOU WOULD BE CONVICTED FOR THAT.
So now people are dying like flies in a blender
like, they kill a dude named Giles Cory
by stacking rocks on top of him until he dies
because he WON’T ADMIT TO BEING A WITCH
and they hang this lady Mary Easty
who is like SUPER pious
and keeps being like “Guys, I actually didn’t do this!”
(although later the government feels bad
and pays her family like two thousand bucks
so all is forgiven)
and Cotton Mather is like “Hey, guys?
You know, witches are real bad and all
but maybe chill out a bit?”
And everyone’s like “WHAT’S THAT YOU SAY?