Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (6 page)

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Corsica.
The town of Calvi claims both his birth and his remains; Columbus has a tombstone there.

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France.
In 1687, French lawyer Jean Colomb claimed Chris was his ancestor.

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England.
A book published in 1682 in London states that Columbus was “born in England, but lived in Genoa.”

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Spain, Armenia, Poland, and even Norway.
Norwegians say his real name was Christopher Bonde.

THE MYTH:
Christopher Columbus was named...Christopher Columbus.

BACKGROUND:
This name first appeared in 1553, long after his death, in a book by Petrus Martyr.

THE TRUTH:
He was never called Columbus in his lifetime. In fact, when Columbus was alive he was known by at least five other names:

•
Cristoforo Colombo.
Most historians believe he was born Cristoforo Colombo (although one Genoese source referred to him as Christofferus de Columbo).

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Christovam Colom.
When he settled in Portugal and became a successful merchant-seaman, he was known as Christobal (or Christovam) Colom (or Colombo).

Anglophiles’ delight: About 1 in 8 Americans are of English descent.

•
Cristobal Colon.
He adopted this name after he moved to Spain (also, occasionally, Christoual or Colamo). This was his name during his voyages and what he’s still called in Spanish countries.

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Christophorus Colonus.
This is the name preferred by his son Fernando, who wrote a biography of his dad. Other Latin forms of the name: Christoforus Colom, Cristoferi Colom.

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Xpoual de Colon.
This is what he was called in his agreement with the King and Queen of Spain before his first voyage across the Atlantic After 1493, he signed his name Xpo FERENS, using only his first name, in the fashion of royalty. Later he began to sign his name like this:

.s.

.S.A.S.

X MY

:Xpo FERENS/

Nobody in the past 500 years has been able to explain what this signature means.

THE MYTH:
Columbus’s boats were officially named the
Nina
, the
Pinta
, and the
Santa Maria
.

BACKGROUND:
Blame historians for spreading the story. For example, in
Three Ships at Dawn
, Augustus Heavy wrote: “
Pinta
, meaning ‘Lovely Lady,’ was called that because she floated so gracefully;
Nina
, meaning ‘Baby,’ was named that because it was so small; and the devoutly religious sailors called the last ship the
Santa Maria
in honor of Saint Mary.”

THE TRUTH:
In Columbus’s time, if a ship had any kind of name at all, it was unofficial—usually something that the crew came up with. This was true of Columbus’s ships as well:

• The
Pinta
might have been called that in honor of the Pinto family in Palos, where the ships were readied for the voyage. But a more likely explanation: “Pinta” also meant “Painted Lady”—a prostitute.

• The
Nina
, smallest of the three ships, had previously been known as the Santa Clara. “Nina” means “Little Girl”—sailor slang for a woman who’s easy with sexual favors.

• And the
Santa Maria
? Many of the crew knew it under its longtime name of
La Gallega
(“Lady from Galicia”), so-called because it was built in that region of Spain. But it had picked up a newer nickname,
Marigalante
—“Dirty Mary.” The devout Columbus objected to the name. He demanded that the crew call the boat
Santa Maria
in honor of Jesus’ mother.

Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns.

THE MYTH:
Queen Isabella of Spain believed so firmly in Columbus’s project that she pawned her jewels to finance it.

BACKGROUND:
Two of Columbus’s biographers—his son Fernando and Bartolome dé Las Casas—told this tale decades after his death.

THE TRUTH:
Isabella didn’t pawn a single pearl. The queen had a special fondness for Columbus: they were both in their mid-30s, fervently religious, enthusiastic about reforming the world, and may both have had fair complexions and red hair. Queen Isabella would listen to Columbus for hours as he laid out his maps of the world and described his plans for carrying Christianity across the ocean. Despite that, he couldn’t get her to finance his plans, because the crown’s funds were tied up in a holy war against the Islamic Moors in southern Spain.

Though Isabella had a great many virtues, religious tolerance wasn’t one of them. She went to war with the Muslims and ordered all Jews expelled from Spain. Christians found to be “insincere” were burned alive at the stake while choir boys sang to protect the queen’s ears from their screams.

With the fall of Granada, the last Islam stronghold, in January 1492, the queen was full of goodwill and generosity. Columbus saw his chance to plead his case again and received a more benevolent hearing this time. Isabella was now soundly behind his vision of taking Christianity across the waters to save thousands more souls.

But she didn’t need to pawn her jewels. As monarch of Castile, she had plenty of her own resources. She used funds from her government coffers, fattened by confiscating property from Jews, Muslims, and “infidels.” She even figured out a way to cut expenses. Shippers in the harbor town of Palos, Spain, had been caught smuggling African goods without paying royal duties. As punishment, the town was ordered to supply ships and provisions for Columbus’s journey.

The screwdriver was first used to help knights put on their armor.

Did Jim Morrison really leave the land of the living in 1971...or did he just slip out of the limelight? Some facts to consider from
It’s a Conspiracy!
by the National Insecurity Council.

T
he Deceased:
Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, one of the most popular rock bands of the 1960s.

How He Died:
In the summer of 1971, Morrison and his girlfriend, Pamela Courson, went to Paris on vacation. On July 5, Courson allegedly found him dead in the bathtub. Two days later, he was buried in a quiet service attended by five close friends. The official cause of death was listed as a heart attack. He was 27.

SUSPICIOUS FACTS

• Nobody but Courson ever saw Morrison’s dead body; neither Morrison’s friends nor his family were given the opportunity to view it. After Morrison died, Courson asked Bill Siddons, the Doors’ road manager, to come to Paris. He said that when he arrived on July 6, he “was met at the flat by Pamela, a sealed coffin, and a signed death certificate.” He never saw Morrison’s body.

• When asked the name of the doctor who signed the death certificate, Siddons said he didn’t know, and Courson said she didn’t remember. Moreover, according to
No One Here Gets Out Alive
, a 1980 biography of Morrison, “There was no police report, no doctor present. No autopsy had been conducted.”

• When Courson filed the death certificate at the U.S. Embassy on July 7, the day of the funeral, she claimed there were no living relatives—which meant that since there was no one to be notified, Morrison could be buried quickly. In fact, Jim’s family lived in Arlington, Virginia.

• Morrison’s friends kept the story of his death a secret for almost a week. Siddons told his story to the media six days after Morrison died, two days after the funeral. Beyond noting that Morrison had died of “natural causes,” Siddons had no more to add.

It’s auto-matic: according to recent polls 40% of American couples first discuss marriage in a car.

POSSIBLE CONCLUSIONS

•
Morrison is really dead.
His friends say they hushed up his death to protect his privacy. A statement prepared for the public said, “The initial news of his death and funeral was kept quiet...to avoid all the notoriety and circus-like atmosphere that surrounded the deaths of such other rock personalities as Janis Joplin and Jimmy Hendrix.”

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Morrison is hiding out.
At the time of his death, Morrison’s life was a mess. He had been convicted on two counts of profanity and indecent exposure in Miami and faced a jail sentence if his appeal failed; he faced a possible 10-year sentence after being busted by the FBI for being drunk and disorderly on an airplane; and more than 20 paternity suits were pending against him. Facts:

Morrison was sick of his life as a rock star and had been saying so for years. He said he wanted to start over anonymously, so he could just write. With Courson’s help, he could easily have faked his own death to give himself a fresh start.

For years, Courson had urged Morrison to quit the band and develop himself as a poet.

She, or someone else, started a rumor that Morrison may have visited a Paris hangout earlier in the evening and obtained some heroin. That, mixed with alcohol, is what supposedly killed him. Yet for all the drugs he ingested, no friends ever mentioned heroin, and Morrison was afraid of needles.

The absence of an autopsy and police report is very suspicious, and the lie about his parents and the quick “burial” forestalled any further inquiries. A doctor could have been bribed to fake a death certificate.

Finally, Morrison had repeatedly talked about Paris. According to one close friend of the singer, “he thought it was a place where he could be himself and not have people hounding him and making a circus out of his life, making him something he wasn’t.”