THE BOOK OF
EXPLORERS
Columbus gets the ball rollingThe Spanish take an early lead
Chapter 10
Columbus’s discovery of America was thus extremely funny,
2Proving that the Giants had been right about the value of having a uModern Age,
3And making a lot of new history.
4The funniest thing of all was that Columbus sailed west into the Atlantic several times and never once landed on either of the two gigantic continents that sat on the other side of the ocean,
5aBut landed instead on a bunch of Caribbean islands,
6bAnd thus missed his chance to name the new world after himself,
7Which is how Italy got a second chance at getting a good start in the race for history,
8Since the Italian Explorer cAmerigo Vespucci recognized Columbus’s mistake,
9And promptly named the new world after himself,
10Which turned out to be another very funny joke,
11Because Amerigo forgot to help himself to everything,
12Which isn’t a smart thing to do,
13dEspecially when there are a lot of Spaniards around.
14And so it happened that Italy got pretty well fed up with trying to make history and be a eChosen Nation for a second time,
15Which would have been a record anyway,
16And became thoroughly funny instead,
17For the rest of recorded human history.
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