Let's Discover Whether or Not Christopher Columbus Slept With a Manatee — Not a Joke

It's crazy to celebrate Christopher Columbus, a man who discovered lands that already existed, contributed to the deaths of indigenous people, and then told everyone he was in the Indies when he was definitely not in the Indies. Most people would be fired if they were that bad at their jobs.

Fun fact about Columbus: he never actually set foot on North America. The closest he got was Guanahani in the Bahamas. This begs the question, why does this man have his own national holiday?

The reason Columbus gets so much credit is that his explorations opened the doors for future expeditions. He also enslaved people and brought new diseases with him that would eventually kill the native people of each place he visited. Columbus died believing he had been to the Indies.

Without the help of modern technology, how could he ever know the truth? It's ignorance that leads to things like believing Columbus may have slept with a manatee. Did he? Let's get into it.

Remember that pesky ignorance thing we were talking about? It strikes again in reference to an unsettling rumor that Columbus slept with a manatee. In his own log, Columbus wrote, "Yesterday, when I was going to the Rio del Oro, I saw three sirens that came up very high out of the sea. They were not as beautiful as they are painted since, in some ways, they have a face like a man."

Harsh words from a guy with no sense of direction.

Experts have come to believe that Columbus actually saw manatees but mistook them for mermaids. Apparently, this was an issue for sailors who were so horned up that they could confuse almost anything for a woman.

Obviously, an easy solution to a bizarre problem would be to invite ladies on board ships. Preferably, ladies who wanted to be there. To no one's surprise, men thought women were bad luck. If a woman was on board for some reason, she was often blamed for bad weather or even disease.

If you're worried about what your Google Calendar is going to say on the second Monday of October, worry no more. In an executive order riddled with propagandized language, President Trump declared that day will always be Columbus Day. As a reminder, it was still Columbus Day. In 2021 former president Joe Biden acknowledged that the day was also Indigenous Peoples Day. He never got rid of Columbus Day.

Of course, you would never know that based on the executive order that claimed "left-wing arsonists" sought to destroy Columbus' name. After a brief history of Columbus, the executive order goes on to say he was a "prime target of a vicious and merciless campaign to erase our history, slander our heroes, and attack our heritage."

As a reminder, Columbus never actually spent a single second in North America. Whose heritage?

Perhaps the best part of this executive order is when the president acknowledges the contributions Italian-Americans have made to this country, which is nice, but fails to realize that an Italian-American must come from an immigrant background. Apparently, some immigrants are OK with this administration, while others are not.

Either way, President Trump believes Christopher Columbus forged a bond between the United States and Italy, even though he was working for Spain.