Who's on first

 I remember loving Christopher Columbus growing up. I still respect him and people of great adventure, but am disappointed with some of the actions that took place during and after many of the adventures that have occurred over the history of human experience. Here we are though, in a land we call America, named after one of the Italian adventures who sailed across the wild oceans to find themselves on ground they didn't know existed. America is the Latinized feminine form of his first name, Amerigo. As we know the Americas had people living here in societies and the European settlers took a bit of time to free up all the space here for themselves. By now we are spread out pretty heavily over North and South America so it will not be easy to give it all back to the indigenous nations, taxes? An interesting part of the settlements is how the waves and winds carried the Spanish adventures to the south and the English who came over later were pushed to the north, which is where the language from each of the mother countries also settled. In the list below we see that the Norse Vikings invaded first, but they didn't do a lot with it, perhaps it is because ships were still developing and it had to be a very hard adventure when they made it over. The Spanish, with a few Italians, were next in crushing this land beneath their feet and our English history books celebrated those Spanish/Italian speaking adventures. The English speaking folk didn't come to take over the northern areas until the voyage was pretty well proven safe.
Key Early Settlements and Landing Dates:
• Vikings (Norsemen) from Scandinavia were the first Europeans to land in North America, establishing a settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada, around 1000 A.D., nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus. Led by Leif Erikson.
• 1492 (Spain): Bahamas (Columbus).
• 1493 (Spain): First Spanish settlement in the New World.
• 1513 (Spain): Florida (Ponce de León).
• 1565 (Spain): St. Augustine (Florida), the first permanent European settlement in North America.
• 1607 (England): Jamestown (Virginia), the first permanent English colony.
• 1608 (France): Quebec (Canada) established by Samuel de Champlain.
• 1620-21 (England): Plymouth Colony (Massachusetts).
What this all comes down to is that the ground under our feet has been being populated by many different groups of people since ships began sailing across the oceans. The list of nationalities that live on the American lands has grown and it has brought great food, traditions and different ways of looking at the world. A world which is growing smaller as we gain understanding of the planet, solar system, galaxy, atoms and more. It is about time that we grow in cultural connection and understanding so that as the world shrinks we can accept each other more easily and recognize our world culture that is based on being humans not the land mass we happen to live on. We should be setting the example in this growth and not following any orders being passed down that are based on outdated beliefs and ignorance. We as a people can continue the American virtue of embracing the melting pot and supporting others as neighbors instead of as enemies just because they speak, look or act a little different.
Love,
PEACE

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