On 2016-09-16 9:40 PM, dsi1 wrote:
> On 9/16/2016 12:43 PM, wrote:
>> In the past both Spain and Portugal were very important.
>>
>
> That would be true. The Portuguese were the first great explorers of the
> world. My guess is that a Portuguese sailor landed in Okinawa 600 or so
> years ago and proceeded to spread his seed around. This resulted in the
> Okinawans looking distinctly different from the Japanese - hairy and
> stocky.
>
The Portuguese were among the first well recorded explorers, but their
exploits were fairly limited. They were a fishing nation, so they were
naturally good sailors. One of the most famous Portuguese explorers was
Magellan, but he sailed on behalf of the Spanish.
> As far as Spain goes, they had many colonies around the world as did
> England. For some reason, the former British colonies seem to have fared
> better in modern times than the Spanish ones.
There is more than a little irony in the expansion of the British
Empire. The Spanish were hell bent on bringing England back onto the
fold of the Roman Catholic church. They were plundering South American
gold and silver to finance their attempts to to do that. Queen Elizabeth
licenced privateers to intercept the Spanish galleons, which put money
into the English coffers and denied it to the Spanish crown. That lead
to the growth of a navy that was capable of founding, establishing and
protecting settlements around the world and they ended up with an empire
that spanned the globe.
The British may not have been perfect, but most of their colonies
thrived and some of them have become the most successful countries in
the world.