1492, August 18, Thursday —Canary Islands: Christopher Columbus, in his intrepid search for a westward passage to India, finally figured out where the Canary Islands are and the fact that he must be near them because he could see them. Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief, especially the crew

1492, August 17, Wednesday —Somewhere between Spain & Canary Islands: Admiral Columbus had the brilliant idea to head to Grand Canary Island instead of Lanzarote in hopes of finding a replacement caravel for the Pinta. Because… uh… quite frankly, the Pinta sucked. The helm was leaking and all kinds of

1492, August 16, Tuesday —Somewhere between Spain & Canary Islands: Christopher Columbus wasn’t doing anything important other than trying to find a stinkin’ westward passage to India when the Pinta’s rudder broke again. Fortunately, the brave and intelligent Captain Pinzón was able to cobble it back together again. Oh. And

1492, August 15, Monday —Somewhere between Spain & Canary Islands: Only 3 days into Christopher Columbus’s voyage to discover a westward passage to India, the rudder on the Pinta broke. Martín Alonso Pinzón, captain of the Pinta, believed Gómez Rascón and Cristóbal Quintero, owners of the caravel, sabotaged it. To

1492, August 12, Friday —Palos de la Frontera, Spain: Christopher Columbus slipped out of the port of Palos de la Frontera, Spain at 8 AM. He had three ships: the Santa Maria, the Niña, and the Pinta. The Santa Maria was a carrack and the largest of the three ships.

2608 BC, December 31, Tuesday —China The Yellow Emperor of China had an observatory erected to observe the motions of celestial objects for the purpose of maintaining the accuracy of their calendar. 2607 BC, January 22 (JC)

2613 BC, December 31, Wednesday —Egypt The Fourth Dynasty began with Sneferu becoming Pharaoh of Egypt. 2612 BC, January 22 (JC)

2627 BC, December 31, Saturday —Location: -10.893611, -77.520278 The Norte Chico civilization begins the Caral settlement. 2626 BC, January 22 (JC)

2633 BC, July 2, Saturday —Kish Iltasadum became the 21st King of Kish in Sumer. Just like the 20 kings who preceded him, we know nothing about this guy other than he is supposed to be king and probably some kind of self-proclaimed god. 2633 BC, July 24 (JC)

2637 BC, December 31, Monday —Egypt Huni became Pharaoh of Egypt, and all of the people rejoiced. “Hooray, hooray. Here’s another guy who thinks he’s some kind of god. Nobody knows his predecessor. Maybe we’ll be lucky and he’ll want us to break our backs building a bunch more of