This is part of my "Learning something new...." series using United States postage stamps as our history book.

To read previous posts in this series, simply click here.

The United States Post Office issued a series of stamps beginning in 1869 with pictures of a horse, a locomotive, an eagle, a ship, Christopher Columbus, and the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The 15¢ denomination pictured the landing of Christopher Columbus on the shores of :

The 15¢ denomination, "Landing of Columbus," was based on John Vanderlyn's painting of the same name Vanderlyn's painting has been hanging in the United States Capitol Rotunda since 1847.

This stamp was the first bicolor stamp issued by the United States. In order to print two or more colors, a sheet of stamps was printed first with one color and then run through the printing press again with the second color. Maintaining alignment was difficult, and occasionally a sheet of stamps would be put in the wrong way on its second pass through the printing press. When that happened, the image inside the frame would be printed upside down, creating very rare stamps known as "inverted images." The Landing of Columbus was the first stamp to be be issued with an inverted image.

I'm sure we all know who Christopher Columbus (ca. 1451 - 1506) was, but here are some facts that you might not know:

1. Although commonly credited with discovering the Americas, Leif Erickson and the Norse Vikings reached North America 500 years earlier at L'Anse aux Meadows in Canada. Of course, we should also credit the Native peoples of the Americas for being here first.
2. Washington Irving's 1828 biography -- some call it a fantasy -- of Christopher Columbus popularized the idea that Columbus had difficulty underwriting his travels to the East Indies because Europeans thought the world was flat. In fact, the Earth had been widely known to be a sphere for about 1,600 years.
3. Columbus was the first to understand the Earth's prevailing winds and how they could affect travel.
4. You might know Columbus's three ships as the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria, but in fact Niña was a nickname for the Santa Clara.
5. Columbus first landed in the Americas in The Bahamas, on an island he called San Salvador, although it is still unknown exactly which island in The Bahamas is Columbus's San Salvador.
6. In his interactions with the Natives on San Salvador, Columbus discovered that people from the mainland abducted the Native as slaves. Columbus wrote in his journal, "They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart, in order that they may learn our language." Sounds like slavery is Christopher Columbus's fault.
7. Columbus also explored Cuba and Hispaniola, and founded the settlement of La Navidad, present-day Haiti.
8. Continuing research indicates that Columbus's first voyage to the New World brought syphillis to Europe. Many of his crew members on the first voyage later joined the army of King Charles VIII during his 1495 invasion of Italy, spreading syphillis across Europe and resulting in as many as 5 million deaths.
9. On Columbus's second voyage, in 1495, he and his men instituted genocide in Hispaniola, enslaving and murdering up to 250,000 of the native Taino people. By 1650, only a handful of Taino remained.
10. Recent research indicate that Columbus died of a heart attack caused by Reiter's Syndrome.
11. Nobody seemed to want Columbus's remains after he died in 1506. He was first interred at Valladolid, Spain, then moved to the monastery of La Cartuja in Seville by his son. In 1542, his remains were shipped to Santo Domingo in Hispaniola, but when the French took over Hispaniola in 1795, his remains were moved to Havana, Cuba. After Cuba won its independent in 1898, his remains were moved back to Spain. Due to all the afterlife travels, it is unknown exactly where his remains are, although partial DNA analysis in 2006 indicate Spain. Whether all of his remains are in Span is up for questioning.
12. Amerigo Vespucci was the first to believe that the lands Columbus discovered and explored was a new continent and not the Indies.
13. The first use of America as the name of the new continent was in 1507 on a world map published by Martin Waldseemüller.
14. Columbus, Ohio, in 1812, was the first United States city to be named after Christopher Columbus.
15. In 1909, Columbus's descendants dismantled the Columbus family chapel in Spain and moved it to State College, Pennsylvania, where you can now visit it

__________
Sources:

1. "The Story of Civilization," by Will Durant
2. "Study traces origin of syphillis in Europe to New World," by CBS News
3. "Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus," by Samuel Eliot Morison
4. "Lies My Teacher Told Me," by James Loewen
5. Wikipedia
6. Arago: People, Postage, and the Post

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