Word: pintas
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...whole course of world history was going to change forever in just two hours more. Nobody quite realized that. But every man in the fleet, from the Admiral to the smallest page boy, was tensely alert . . . 'Tierra! Tierra!' bawled [the lookout on the Pinta] . . . The ship's biggest piece of artillery, a 'lombard,' had been standing, loaded and primed, ready to fire a signal the moment there was news . . . 'Bang!' went the lombard. North America had been discovered...
...These birds," Columbus noted in his log on the seventh day out, "never go more than 25 leagues [about 100 miles] from land." But the nearest islands at that point were the Azores, 600 miles to the north. A few days later the Santa Maria, Niña and Pinta ran into an oceanful of good omen. Soft breezes, another boatswain bird and a sea of floating weed with a live crab still enmeshed in it pleased everyone, and "the best sailors went ahead to sight land first." Actually, the lonely little formation had not yet reached mid-Atlantic: boatswain...