h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Please let me know when your ready for a few comments. Saw a few nits and some other points I might take issue with, but over all it it is a good look at a subject that could make a fair size book. I won't comment unless invited.

No, go ahead Other than grammar etc, what do you want to take issue with? I'm going to proofread it when it's all finished

Okay let me get it on the HD and I'll leave a post in the morning.

>His father was Domenico Colombo and his father Suzanna Fontanarossa.<

A nit, but I am almost certain one of them was his mother.

>He did various sailing jobs, gaining experience and knowledge about navigation and sailing. In one voyage, he sailed to Guinea and noticed that the winter winds off of Africa's Gold Coast blew west. This would later be important to him.<

Quibble this is in the region of the North East trade winds which is why he departed from the Canaries, the westerly wids for his return were further north. It was because he knew that the wind would be behind him he re-rigged the Pinta ( I thought it was the Nina, but I'm not looking it up ) with square sails.


>Columbus spent much of the 1470s as a draftsman, illustrating for books and drawing inaccurate maps, but he still sailed the seas, as it was his true passion. When he could, he learned about the geography of the world for his maps and sailing. <

Misleading at best, Columbus is probably rolling in his grave. His maps were as accurate as possible for the time, but without an accurate was of calculating longitude ( the east west position of locations ) the maps of the era were horribly distorted in that dimension, however the north south locations are quite accurate. Today we know that there is a three hour difference from New York to California, approximately a three thousand mile distance, or one thousand miles to the hour, making the circumference of the world about 24,000 miles. I am not bothering to look up the actual figure, but it is a lot closer than either Columbus or Magellan imagined. Since he sailed into the unknown the prevailing winds were far more important than the geography. As a side note it is the wind offshore that matters because the heating and cooling of the land produces false winds, the Land breeze and the sea breeze.

>It is sometimes claimed that Columbus didn't get his voyages financed because the popular view was that the earth was round. In fact, it was for totally different reasons. <

Nit I believe you meant to say flat.

>Ptolemy supposed that the distance to the Indies was much smaller than it actually is, and he had been taught that the world was six parts land and one part water (where it actually around three parts water and one part land) so he did not suppose that the voyage would be impossible. <

I believe there was a Greek study that was far closer to the truth, both based on measuring the length of shadows at noon of pole of a given length at two cities a known distance apart, north and south. The above comment on time vs circumference might fit well here if you are so inclined.


>He set sail from the southern port city of Palos, Spain, near Huelva on Friday, August 3, 1492. The course he gave his sailors was simply 'West; nothing to the north, nothing to the south. He first went to the Canary Islands in early August, where he had to remain for several weeks because of unfavorable winds. There, he repaired the ships and gave the Pinta a square-rigged masthead. The ships left the island on September 6, 1492, but winds were still slow.<

I believe that the line "West; nothing to the north, nothing to the south." was given after leaving the Canaries, not Spain The course to the Canaries was well known to the crews.

>The crew had seen other false signs of land, such as weeds and birds, but this one made them particularly hopeful and they continued on cheerfully.<

The "weeds" were the Sargasso Sea a mention of the name might be appropriate, also I have seen reports that the compass was checked against the pole star one night and the difference in direction, probably due to a magnetic anomaly, or variation due to the distance from the magnetic north pole to the geographical one, almost panicked the crew until they were past it.

>Three ships were sent back to Spain with some Carib prisoners and items from the Indies. Columbus asked that they be enslaved, but they were treated with the same courtesy that the natives from the first voyage had seen. Failing slavery, he hoped that they might be taught Spanish and be used as translators, but Queen Isabella turned it away. This made Isabella upset, and she never supported Columbus as readily after this.<

I have read that the early patents for exploration in Florida ( admittedly a few years after this account ) natives had to given three chances to convert the true church ( Catholicism ) before being enslaved. Was there any such restriction here ?

Hope I haven't been too hard, but it is a good subject.

I've just skimmed through these, and it looks really useful, thanks. And also pretty embarassing

Two fathers...

However, I'll have to discuss the point of whether or not his maps were very inaccurate in the morning. The maps didn't have the Cape of Good Hope because Dias and De Vaca (I think) hadn't made it to there yet, plus there was no South and North America. Seems rather inaccurate to me

I'll have to get back to you this afternoon

>Columbus spent much of the 1470s as a draftsman, illustrating for books and drawing inaccurate maps, but he still sailed the seas, as it was his true passion. When he could, he learned about the geography of the world for his maps and sailing. <

The way this reads it implies that either Columbus was a poor draftsman or was deliberately trying to mislead others. Neither one of which are true. He could hardly be faulted for not drawing what he didn't know was there, or expected to have greater accuracy than the data he was given. Also the books he was illustrating are what we today call "pilot books" or, in the book and movie Shogun they were called "rutters". These contain drawings of prominent landmarks, drawings of harbors and anchorages, and information about wind and currents. This was as exacting a process as possible because lives and ships depended on their accuracy. They were also considered state secrets.

BTW The east-wast distortion was not as big a problem as might be seen as deep water ships developed the practice of "sailing the latitude" meaning they put their ship on the north- south position of the port while far out to sea and sailed due east or west until they spotted land. England captured several Spanish gold flotillas by stationing their warships a few hundred miles due west of Cadiz.

>In one voyage, he sailed to Guinea and noticed that the winter winds off of Africa's Gold Coast blew west.<

Thought about this and I believe you mean the wind blew towards the west, in general wind directions are given by where the wind is blowing from, a north east wind blows from the north east to the south west.

For your last point, if it were blowing from the west, it would have put him east, eh? But I'll change it to 'blew from the east'

...when I get around to it

...got around to it

It's very useful having someone so knowledgable of sea history around I might write an entry on the Mystery of the Roanoake Colony soonish, and your insights could be useful!

As a more direct question - do you think I should split this entry up into smaller sections? It's getting pretty long. I could probably split it up into

Early Life
First Voyage
Second Voyage
Third Voyage and Arrest
Fourth Voyage and Later Years
Legacy

But that's six entries

I think it might well be split into two entries, the first covering from his birth to his first return to Spain, and a second one about his three later voyages and troubles with the nobility. I think these two would both be a comfortable read and a logical split because before he proved his theory he was a simple man with a vision, after that he became a target of the rich who coveted his new position.

I'll deal with it later The most important thing now is laying down the content But your splitting seems logical!

Quite a lot has been done, but it really needs splitting up now

Okay... pretty much finished. I'll proofread it and put it up for review at the Historians Page

Finally divided it up
Part one - Early Life and First Voyage. Part Two - Second and Third Voyages. Part Three - Fourth Voyage to Death.

Haven't had a chance to look closely yet, but I will.

One comment your footnote 3

>3 Though had Columbus gone directly West, he would have landed somewhere in New England in America.<

This was true when you had him steering West from Palos, however La Palma in the canaries is located at 28 deg 50 min North about 20 miles north of Cape Canaveral Florida ( 28 deg. 28 min. North) Although still about a hundred miles south of his intended landfall Columbus was a lot closer than indicated.

Source = Bowditch Practical Navigator (c) 1966

F S

Great point I didn't think to correct that when you gave me that other point about going directly west

Third Voyage

>One group of three vessels was sent to Hispaniola to give supplies to La Navidad (which was desperately needed...<

I believe you may have meant La Isabella, or did he re-establish La Navidad?

Fourth Voyage

>Columbus encountered a long Mesoamerican ship, which was the first encounter between Europeans and a Mesoamerican civilization<

'Mesoamerican' probably needs a foot note for understanding.

>He also has a large city in Ohio named after him.<

Had to get the Ohio reference in.



F S

Thanks I knew I missed some things, because I was watching a terribly exciting game on TV when I was proofreading this...

And yes, I did have to get an ohio reference in! It's pretty much the only reason I write entries See A1156853, A1062569 , A1143541, A1067960, A1118332 and A1106498 And I could have easily gotten a reference in A1084619