Blog for Week of Sept. 23

I need to come up with some sort of name to address the people who are reading my posts. It's boring just saying hey everyone. Anyways, something that caught my attention during the week was the story of Ferdinand van Olmen. In 1487, only a few years prior to Columbus, van Olmen was given permission to sail west with the hopes of discovering new resources and land for Portugal. He attempted to go west across the Atlantic Ocean with high hopes, but he ran into difficult winds and storms that made the voyage impossible. Strangely enough, the weather had a tremendous impact on our world history. Since van Olmen set sail in winter, the winds were pushing against his ships. Columbus, to his fortune, set sail when the winds were in his favor and helping him towards what would become the New World. Imagine if van Olmen had succeeded and ended up discovering the New World for Portugal. The entire structure of Latin America would be based on Portuguese culture and language. The people today would be drastically different, and the nations that currently exist might be totally unique. Who knows, the United States might have never existed! The story of van Olmen and how it relates to Columbus created a huge butterfly effect on all of Latin American history that I found incredibly interesting. 

Comments

  1. Lillie RozyckiSeptember 23, 2021 at 11:23 AM

    Hi Ben! This theoretical future where Ferdinand van Olmen encountered the New World first is fascinating! Everything would be different. The culture, language, and values would be based on Portuguese concepts. It is interesting to think one event can be a catalyst that all of history bases itself upon after. The butterfly effect is incredible in the perspective of world history, and it is even more grand when proposing alternate theories of how history would have played out. Thank you so much for bringing this idea to life!

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  2. Joseph GreendykSeptember 24, 2021 at 11:00 AM

    Hey Ben! This post was super interesting. I had never heard of van Olmen before, so hearing about him in class, and now in your post, is fascinating. It's crazy to me how something we deem as inconsequential nowadays like wind direction had such a major impact on the course of history. I don't think twice about what way the wind is blowing when I walk outside, but if van Olmen would have before he left on his journey, things would have been drastically different. I liked your point that the countries of today may not have existed or would be totally different if the Portuguese had come to the New World first.

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  3. Professor StarkSeptember 26, 2021 at 9:19 AM

    Thank you, Ben, for the post. I too find van Olmen's voyages interesting and this is one of the great what-if questions of history. You're point of imagining how history would be different if he had sailed at a different time and along a different route is well-taken.

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