In 1992, Native Americans protested the celebration of Columbus's arrival to the New World 500 years before. It seems like such a large grudge to hold, but their lives could've been quite different without his meddling. Actually, all of our lives would be different without Columbus "discovering" the Americas. For example, I probably wouldn't be writing this blog in English.
Europeans in North and South Americas: Spaniards in Caribbean, then on to Aztec and Inca empires; Portuguese in Brazil; and British, French, and Dutch colonies in North America.
Reading about Europeans expanding their empires to the Americas reminds me of the beginning readings of Ethnic American History. "The Great Dying" is an interesting way to title the first section of the reading. [Hopefully,] most people know that Europeans/Africans/whoever were not the first peoples to populate the Americas, but it's always interesting to hear which animals are indigenous to the Americas and which animals immigrated. Chinese people use peanuts often in their cooking, so it's funny that this is a result of the Europeans' passage into the New World.
The Columbian Exchange is a network of communication, migration, trade, and transfer of plants and animals. The Europeans highly benefitted from pillaging America's lands because it directly helped the beginning of the Scientific Revolution, shifted the world power to Europe, and helped to expand their empires elsewhere.
