Yet they both committed atrocities (torture, murder, rape and god knows what else) and only one is being hailed as “explorer”.
Edit: I’m not saying we should hail Genghis Khan as an explorer, I’m saying that Christopher Columbus should be deplored as a murderer and a marauder, not praised as an explorer.
Do you think Native Americans would agree to define him as an explorer too, then?
And Adolf Hitler was a politician. That was his “mission”. We don’t define Hitler by his career though.
I guess he went above and beyond on that mission, yeah? By your definition he seems more like a bounty-hunter/privateer and not an explorer, but worse in every way. (And how is rape supposed to tie into this narrative about his goal of securing more funding anyway?)
So by your logic, not having a military position pardons any atrocities he committed and waives the reason to call him anything other than “explorer”? He was a butcher and a rapist. That’s a fact.
You don’t need a rank and a hat to become a sanctioned piece of shit. That can happen sans the hat.
Is this your opinion, or an “accurate” fact too?