Amerigo Vespucci was a notoriously good self-promoter, with some of his writings receiving a lot of acclaim. Due to his notoriety, when German cartographer Martin Waldseemüler created the first map of the New World in 1507, a year after Columbus died, he named the entire area “America,” based on the …
“For the execution of the voyage to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps.” – Christopher Columbus From 1438 to 1533, before Columbus blazed the trail leading to what would become South America, the Incas established 14,000 miles of roads to connect the housing, public …
“NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!… Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms.” – Monty Python Europe used money a lot, and from the fall of the Roman Empire until the Renaissance, they didn’t use …
“If you want to make a little money, write a book. If you want to make a lot of money, create a religion.” – L. Ron Hubbard By the time the Roman Empire fell, the Roman Catholic Church had already grown to the point where it was no …
How were the 66 books of the Bible chosen and how did they get to be considered “perfect, infallible, and inerrant?” “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.” – Mark Twain There was a movement …
“Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.” – Ambrose Bierce The first corporations weren’t like the corporations we know today. Initially created for only temporary purposes, such as the building of roads and aqueducts, the publicani, public contractors, lured individuals to invest in infrastructure for the public …
Although the Roman Empire considered this Jesus figure to be more pesky than prophetic at the time, they reportedly crucified him for claiming he was a king before adopting the religion loosely based on his teachings 3 centuries later. As the story goes, this Jesus fellow was sort of a …
The Pentateuch, also called the Torah, including Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, were largely crafted between the years 538–332 BC, a time when slavery was well accepted and males had become the dominant sex of the species as the boys began to play with their new toy, money. Like …
“Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.” – Napoleon Bonaparte Throughout the entire Macedonian region, as the terms of banking as a way of life were becoming more integrated into the developing nation-states, what would become the Judeo/Christian/Islamic heritage was also spreading throughout the region, as the …
“A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.” –Yogi Berra In addition to cattle, slaves, and grain, money as a means of trade has had a number of incarnations, such as teeth, gemstones, foods, weapons, seashells, grains, salt, animal skins, bones, and feathers, but none of them changed the world quite …
