There are many books claiming the Vikings first.

Originally Posted by Zucchini

There are many books claiming the Vikings first.

Well, that´s true. But there are proofs.

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehisto...s/vikhome.html

There are no physical proofs concerning muslims visits to America

In spanish its called "Viruela",

Oh sorry, i thought smallpox was the same in spanish.

It's true that the spanish unitentionally brought the disease, but they did seem a good job of spreading it, i think they even gave diseased clothes to natives to wipe out pockets of people.

BTW, is there any animosity between latin america and spain, i read in a national geographic that mexico and other countries don't get along with spain.

Originally Posted by WarMachine

but they did seem a good job of spreading it, i think they even gave diseased clothes to natives to wipe out pockets of people.

There is only one instance that I am aware of this happening and it was perpetrated by a colonial British officer.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this act has been blown up, mythicised, and incorporated into the 90s indoctrination of White American guilt.

I know some white man did that to the indians at one point, but you might as well throw them all into the same group. I mean which colonial power didn't screw the indians.

I don't know that they understood enough about the transmission of disease to have any control over it in terms of using it as a weapon.

It's fairly well accepted that the Swine Flu epidemic started in the trenches in France, and was brought back to home countries when the troops returned from WWI.At the time they had little idea of what they were doing.

Another viral outbreak took place in a later war. We are very lucky it was self limiting.

Originally Posted by WarMachine

Oh sorry, i thought smallpox was the same in spanish.

It's true that the spanish unitentionally brought the disease, but they did seem a good job of spreading it, i think they even gave diseased clothes to natives to wipe out pockets of people.

BTW, is there any animosity between latin america and spain, i read in a national geographic that mexico and other countries don't get along with spain.

Well, I do not think that the spaniards spread the disease intentionally. That behaivor wouldn´t have been very intelligent..they probably didn´t know the cause-effect btw using infected closes and the disease..The probably relationated the disease with a punishment of god...We can´t see this facts with our mentality...

The porpouse of spaniards was to annex the aztec empire to the spanish empire. They just used violance when the indians didn´t accept their peace offers and when they did not renounced to human sacrifices and canibalism(aztecs usually practised human sacrifices as a gift to Bichilobo, and they also had the habit of eateing their prisioners;in the mentality of a XVI century Catolic conqueor this was unnanceptable, they thought that aztecs prayed to devil...) and this cases they could be really mean.But if they accepted their peace offers they actually acted like brothers, for example with Cempoal kingdom.

Oops, sorry, i forgot your second question...yes, there is animosity some times, but i would call it in better terms a love-hate relation...Spain has good relations with all Latin America, we invert a lot of money there, there a lot of spanish companies, a lof of spanish peole live there( and there never have been agressions to them), we send a lot of humanitarian help, we have the same language, the same religion,....I think we consider our selfs as brothers. A lot of people in South America has spanish blood!!

I know Spain has invested a large amount of money in Cuba. So have several other countries: Canada, France, Germany, etc.

But I agree, Spain has essentially excellent international relations throughout their former American colonies.

Originally Posted by Zucchini

I know Spain has invested a large amount of money in Cuba. So have several other countries: Canada, France, Germany, etc.

But I agree, Spain has essentially excellent international relations throughout their former American colonies.

Actually Cuba is where less money have been inverted, at least during the period 1990-2003.
The countries with more inversions are: Brasil(40.000 million euros), Argentina,Chile, Perú,México and Venezuela(great idea of our brand new a**hole,Zapatero)

But lets get on topic....