On Friday, September 16, 2016 at 4:11:43 PM UTC-10, Dave Smith wrote:
> 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.

That's interesting!

>
> 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.