A lunar eclipse may have saved Columbus.
In February 1504, a desperate Columbus was stranded in Jamaica, abandoned by half his crew and denied food by the islanders. The heavens that he relied on for navigation, however, would guide him safely once again. Knowing from his almanac that a lunar eclipse was coming on February 29, 1504, Columbus warned the islanders that his god was upset with their refusal of food and that the moon would “rise inflamed with wrath” as an expression of divine displeasure. On the appointed night, the eclipse darkened the moon and turned it red, and the terrified islanders offered provisions and beseeched Columbus to ask his god for mercy.
bluesclera: Good story but is it true? Doubt it.
bravobracus: That was Tintin
Chubby-Fish: And that natives name was Albert Einstein
helpinghat: In which language did they communicate?
Pleasantdadjoke: Luke Skywalker did some similar shit with c3po on endor a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. So it looks like yet another thing that you didn’t do first Chris Colombus
1883456: I guess he read Tintin
tsu1028: Who the fuck made this shit up?
Irishman1st: How did they know each other’s language?
TexasFordTough: “How I tricked the Asians” by Christopher Columbus
yaycoasttocoast: How the fuck did he know there was an eclipse coming? Wasn’t he unaware where he even was?
vonmarks: After he discovered Jamaica of course.
diegojones4: Mr. Peabody did the same thing once.
liminoid_lion: How would he have known enough about the native language to communicate such a thing?
ThatFeel_IKnowIt: This is so obviously not fucking true. Fuck you OP.
Young_macadamia: This is what a villain from a kids movie would do
UncleGriswold: Wow – so I guess this is where Mark Twain got his inspiration for the scene in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court where Hank Morgan convinces the medieval folks that he’s a magician.
Speaker_Of_Trees: Reminds me of “a Yank in King Arthur’s Court”.
DaveboNutpunch: …and then he raped all the women and disfigured all the men.
Sad that *my addition* to the story is the most believable. :/
FrenchAstoriaM: Tintin did the same thing in the Sun Temple to avoid being executed by the Incas.
mapheous: Uh doubt this is true. What about the language barrier?
NoBeansHereBro: Don’t believe this for a second
LCUCUY: This sounds unlikely for multiple reasons
RedditWhilePoopin: And then he committed genocide. All of them. Gone.
Thanks for the food. now enjoy rape and murder.
YouNeedAnne: Is this before or after Home Alone?
macinit1138: If true, greatest dick move ever.
Starbucks-Hammer: Man he should’ve starved. He was a huge dick.
Elephantmenstruation: He truly was the biggest cunt of all cunts
LifeIsBizarre: Savages! Savages! Barely even human!
BigBenRapeVictim: Columbus the GOAT
bankrobba: Then he gave them syphilis.
franchisoni: Read this nice short story about a eclipse
[El eclipse](https://lasesana.com/on-writing/the-eclipse-augusto-monterroso/)
SmokeSignals22: Then came the plates of jerk chicken and diarreah
ImYaDawg: And they gave him lots of weed for his trip..
TheLantean: And this is why we have the prime directive.
Ex388: This might be stupid but how would he know their language?
ButterscotchHair: And thus starting the republican party politics?
PhillipBrandon: Saving the man who would go on to direct *Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone*.
AutisticOnAHistorian: ITT: Christopher Columbus tricked brown people once, Reddit is triggered.
shadyhawkins: Then he raped and enslaved them all. Yay!
DrSpacemanSpliff: I thought they filmed Harry Potter in Scotland…
misterfrecklesmeow: Who I look like? Christopher Columbo!!!!
ThomasHL: TIL Columbus was on someone else’s island committing crimes. They refused to give him food. He enslaved the population, and set himself up as a tyrant treating people like things.
When he came back home people were so disgusted at what he’d done they threw him in prison.
…6 weeks later they let him out, because all humans are terrible. But they didn’t pay him all the money he wanted at least.
OilerFlame: I wonder where Christopher Columbus thought Jamaica was. I know he mistook the natives as being Indian, he mistook Cuba for China, and he also mistook Hispaniola for being Japan.
well_duh_doy_son: Science, bitch
TheLeech77: Thats my kind of guy.
masonlodge: Do you mean Cortes?
cartel: this sounds like a crock of shit… columbus was a dunce.
lemmenche: …and barely more than half a millennium later, smart people are predicting measles outbreaks and you can’t get parents to vaccinate their kids. Somehow I don’t think history would fault is 100 years from now if we did the same thing to stupid people as we did to the Native Americans.
robfurnell: This happened in a Whoopi Goldberg movie I’m pretty sure.
TigerLime: I call bullshit. As if the people in Jamaica had never seen an eclipse before.
Meksimus: How the fuck would he have known when a lunar eclipse was going to happen, WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING WHAT THE EARTH LOOKED LIKE?
verzion101: I don’t trust this is from the hystree channel.
TippyWasTaken: Can’t calculate the circumference of Earth correctly but knows when an eclipse will happen. Sure. It might be true, but it sounds like someone read some Mark Twain before ‘making’ this fact.
justaskunk: That’s cool and all but he was still a piece of shit
nomsayin_: He was a lying thief, end of.
mmkbb: This 100% happened (in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court)
homelessscootaloo: That’s pretty cool, superior culture dominating a far weaker one.
Skaughty23: Suckers
SexyToasterStrudel: Good ol’ Chris
SuiteSwede: A fine example of fear of the occult/ superstitions being used to manipulate unintelligent masses. Like Christianity
AnomalousAvocado: Hahaha, stupid natives.