In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-Two

In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-Two,
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
Then AmerInds, unexpectedly,
Discovered Columbus, lost at sea.

The main reason nobody tried to go West was because they knew about how far it really was from Lisbon to Delhi going West through absolutely uncharted space.

Chris ignorantly underestimated the girth of the earth, but, importantly, being dead wrong didn't stop him from finding backers.

Also, aiming for India-Indian latitudes, he crossed the Atlantic, not at the worst line (vs Northern routes previously taken by Eskimo and Viking and who knows who-all else) - but if he hadn't bumped into the island, he might have not hit land 'til Panama, if they'd made it that far.

I don't condemn him for being a brutal, arrogant, racist thug in modern sensitivity; he didn't get where he got by being a sweetie-pie. Pirates and sea captains, a breed. He was not great. He was just Captain Idiot as far as being at the center of history's most astonishing (however inevitable) 'accident.' (Perhaps I should more respectfully say Captain Moron.) He died never knowing he hadn't reached Asia.

Captain Christopher Moron Columbus, thanks, dude. Without you, I might've been born in Europe!