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Academic honesty essay
Importance of telling truth
How important is academic honesty
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“In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue”, starts the beginning of one of history’s biggest fabrications. We teach our children to be honest and truthful, but then lie to them for the first six to eight years of their educational lives about their own history. For in fact, Columbus did not discover America and did not unveil the myth regarding the world being flat. At the moment, I have yet to discover if Christopher Columbus ever discovered anything at all. Knowing the meaning of discovery, the land that Columbus reached from his voyage and the unorthodox events that occurred after Columbus’ adventure; I do not celebrate Columbus Day. I enjoy the day off from work, as do most Americans that observe the day; but Columbus Day should not be an American holiday for many apparent reasons.
First, let us distinguish what constitutes a discovery. To discover is to find something or someone that is unknown. The many discoveries of Einstein and yet, he has no special day on the calendar to date. Well we definitely know that the land that Columbus reached from Spain was ...
Some explorers were not looking for land to claim, but faster routes. Columbus went exploring trying to find a faster way to Asia/India for spice trading. The reason for this was because his country was receiving Asian Spices from Muslims(Document 3). In order to get the spices from the Muslims, high prices had to be paid since it was exchanged from person to person. Columbus went sailing and found an area that had inhabitants who looked like people he has never seen before which he assumed were Indians. Columbus saw they had foods he never had before and he started trading with them. He brought over foods such as the Irish Potato, Florida Oranges, Colombian Coffee, and French Vanilla Ice cream, for trading purposes(Document 6). All of those
Christopher Columbus does not deserve to be honored as a hero with his own holiday. Close to 500 years, people have praised Christopher Columbus and also celebrated him as though he was the one who truly founded America. Teachers teach students that he was a great man, also how he found treasures and land known as America. Students are also taught about the names of his three ships he used on his first voyage. However, they did not teach us the truth about Christopher Columbus, and his so called “discovery”.
The controversy of whether or not Christopher Columbus should continue to be acknowledged by a federal holiday proves that his legacy has not escaped the scrutiny of history. Arguments born of both sides of the controversy stem from issues such as genocide, racism, multiculturalism, geographical land rights, and the superiority of certain cultures over others. In The Christopher Columbus Controversy: Western Civilization vs. Primitivism, Michael Berliner, Ph.D. declares that recognition of Columbus Day is well-deserved, claiming that Western civilization is superior to all other cultures and Columbus personifies this truth. On the contrary, Jack Weatherford's Examining the Reputation of Christopher Columbus equates Columbus' so-called discovery with brutal genocide and the destruction of ancient sophisticated civilizations. These articles demonstrate two extreme points of view in a manner that makes clear each authors' goals, leading the reader to consider issues of author bias, motivation, and information validity.
Does this document support Christopher Columbus?YES this document supports him. What evidence do you see to support this? In this Document it tells that Columbus did a lot of stuff to protect his crew and was a really good sailing.
Despite being one of the most renowned explorers in history, Christopher Columbus’ legacy remains controversial. The debate on whether Columbus should be celebrated has captured news headlines for decades. While many view him simply as a gifted Italian navigator who laid the seeds for the colonization of the New World, history paints a much more complicated picture. His journal entries and eye-witness testimony reveal Columbus to be a man of intolerance and indifference towards those deemed inferior to himself. Christopher Columbus’ treatment of Indigenous’ people, in addition to his ethnocentric worldview, allows for the conclusion that he should not be idolized as a hero in the modern age.
Christopher Columbus is a mythical hero or in other words, not a true hero. The story of Christopher Columbus is part of the many myths of Western civilization. Also the story of Christopher Columbus represents the power of those that are privileged and in most cases white European men that have written this mythical history. Zinn (2009 exposes the truth about Columbus through eyes of the people who were there when he had arrived which were the Native Indians (p.481). Columbus had kept a personal journal for his voyage to describe the people and the journey. What was evident throughout his journal was the Native Americans were very nice, gentle and kind hearted people (Zinn, 2009, 481). As Zinn suggests Columbus spoke of the Native Americans as” they are the best people in the world and
In some respects, we can attribute the founding of America and all its subsequent impacts to Christopher Columbus. Columbus a hero in the United States, has his own holiday and we view as the one who paved the way for America to be colonized. However, people tend to forget the other side of Columbus, the side that lusted after gold and resources that often belonged to the native inhabitants he came across in his exploration. In his insatiable greed, he and his crew committed countless atrocities, such as torture and killing of defenseless natives. Columbus’s discovery of these new lands contributes profound and negative effects as future colonists arrived. “Zinn estimates that perhaps 3 million people perished in the Caribbean alone from raids, forced labor and disease” (Zinn, 1980). Columbus was seen as a cruel man, who saw the peaceful inhabitants as right for the conquering and lead to the devastation of the native population, yet is celebrated every October.
Many Americans honor Christopher Columbus Day as a holiday that celebrates his discovery of the New World on October 12, 1492. Some make the argument that Columbus is not to be considered a hero because of his actions. However, this day celebrates his discovery but not his mistakes after. His findings brought new knowledge to the Old World, profited many countries, and improved life conditions of many people. Before his voyage some thought if sailing West all one would find is India, however Columbus’ expedition found
Everyone has heard the story of how Christopher Columbus discovered America. Almost every child is taught to think this from kindergarten. There's even a day every year dedicated to him. The thing is, not everyone knows the whole story. Christopher Columbus isn't quite the hero people make him out to be. He is responsible for almost all of the deaths of the 1-3 million Taínos Indians. Columbus was the one to ask for the money to explore. He was the one to claim the land for Spain. It was him who gave to order to kill everyone. He's obviously completely guilty, right? Well, not exactly.
[2] Columbus is a mainstay of American patriotism. He is the patron saint who planted the seeds of our nation. Our culture has been lulled into his heroic myth for hundreds of years and has celebrated this man with much pomp and circumstance. Columbus’ worthiness has been the subject of much controversy and is now being linked to such un-heroic terms as mass murder, holocaust, and genocide.
America's national memory is filled with icons and symbols, avatars of deeply held, yet imperfectly understood, beliefs. The role of history in the iconography of the United States is pervasive, yet the facts behind the fiction are somehow lost in an amorphous haze of patriotism and perceived national identity. Christopher Columbus, as a hero and symbol of the first order in America, is an important figure in this pantheon of American myth. His status, not unlike most American icons, is representative not of his own accomplishments, but the self-perception of the society which raised him to his pedestal in the American gallery of heroism.
Did Columbus "discover" America? Yes, in every important respect. This does not mean that no human eye had been cast on America before Columbus arrived. It does mean that Columbus brought America to the attention of the civilized world, i.e., the developing scientific civilizations of Western Europe. The result, ultimately, was the United States of America. It was Columbus's discovery for Western Europe that led to the influx of ideas and people on which this nation was founded and on which it still rests. The opening of America brought the ideas and achievements of Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, and the thousands of thinkers, writers, and inventors who followed. What they replaced was a way of life dominated by fatalism, passivity, superstition, and magic.
The explorer who supposedly discovered America, Christopher Columbus, was also the one to cause the destruction of the Native Americans residing in the ‘New World’. For this embellished act of exploration, there is a holiday, Columbus Day, held in honor for his infamous exploration. Columbus Day should be abolished from being a national holiday because of the fact that after he set reign over America under Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand populations of the Indians in Haiti decreased rapidly from 8,000,000 to 12,000 Native Americans remaining. “Estimates of Haiti's pre-Columbian population range as high as 8,000,000 people. When Christopher Columbus returned to Spain, he left his brother Bartholomew in charge of the island. Bartholomew took
Have you ever heard of the classroom rhyme that goes like this “ In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue?” Well, Christopher Columbus did not actually discover the Americas first, but just so happened to stumble across it on his way to discovering a shortcut to India where spice and luxury goods were found. Fast forward to hundreds of years later in a more technologically advanced society, historians are continuously learning and writing more about Christopher Columbus’ real life. However, there has been a tremendous amount of controversy that surfaced over the justification of whether we should actually honor this explorer as a true hero. The real question is are we honoring him for accidentally finding our country by celebrating a holiday based on his name on the second Monday of every October when he is not actually true hero? I mean the holiday is a good benefit but why the holiday
In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue. We have been taught this saying ever since grade school to remember what the “wonderful” Christopher Columbus had done. In our history we notice him as a hero, the great one who found this terrific piece of land we live on and now call North America? What our history books like to leave out about the “great” Christopher Columbus is the part of history where he raped, and enslaved hundreds of Native Americans. Since then Native Americans have been marginalized and pushed around even though they have done so much for America. All their work and contributions are forgotten in our uneducated minds, the time has come to start appreciating all that they have done for us. So let me start over. In