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Yes. Meaningless. 1492? Very meaningful.

One of the most important feats if not the most important of what we used to call the Age of Exploration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Discovery

This led to global trade that changed the face of the earth. It opened philosophical debates about human rights, the legality of wars, etc., which are still important today.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/school-salamanca/#IusGent...

These debates led to the prohibition of American Indian slavery in... 1542!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Laws

The first recorded christian marriage in current United States was an interracial union in 1565!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_colonial_Spanish_Am...

I could go on an on.




A nuance here. Why is this important? Slavery was very common back then and the New Laws were revolutionary.

The Ottomans were famous for their slave trade and did capture tons of Europeans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_Ottoman_Empire

Not only that, Aztecs and other indigenous peoples from the americas had Slavery as an institution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_slavery

Indigenous slavery ended with the New Laws


Yeah, we had the School of Salamanca, and the state-of-the-art Liberal Constitution from Cadiz, but somehow, we the Spaniards fuck things over spectacularly, as if we had a curse.




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