Of course they are difficult for the untrained eye to see; the early sailors had to squint at the water for hours, which is why so many of them ended up having to wear eye patches, especially in movies. But the hardy sacrifice those early mariners made for us will never be forgotten, not as long as we are reading this particular paragraph.

Meanwhile, in nearby Italy, Christopher Columbus was forming. As a youth, he spent many hours gazing out to sea and thinking to himself: “Someday I will be the cause of a holiday observed by millions of government workers.” The fact that he thought in English was only one of the amazing things about the young Columbus. Another was his conviction that if he sailed all the way across the Atlantic, he would reach India. We now know, thanks to satellite photographs, that this makes him seem as stupid as a buffalo, although it sounded pretty good when Columbus explained it to the rulers of Spain, Ferdinand and his lovely wife, Imelda, who agreed to finance the voyage by selling six thousand pairs of her shoes.

And so Columbus assembled a group of the hardiest mariners he could find. These fellows were so hardy that, had the light bulb been invented at that time, it would have taken at least three of these mariners to screw one in, if you get our drift. On October 8, 1492 they set out across the storm-tossed Atlantic in three tiny ships, the Ninia, the Pina Colada, and the Heidy-Ho III. Fortunately Columbus kept a detailed log, so we can get some sense of how long and arduous their journey was from revealing excerpts such as this:

October 8—Boy, is this journey ever long! Also arduous!

But finally, after numerous storm-tossed weeks, just when it seemed as if Columbus and his men would never see land again, there came an excited cry from the lookout.

“Hey!” he cried. “we forgot to put up the sails!”