I'll confess I did one thing today that might be "celebrating Columbus Day" in a sense; for the last few years, I like to reread on that day Don Rosa's "The Lost Charts of Columbus", a delightful sequel to Carl Barks' "The Golden Helmet" story, which does bring up the "indigenous peoples were here long before Columbus and the rest" element in it (complete with a neat little twist at the end).
I added two more of Don Rosa's stories to that this year. According to a "medieval book of days" that I'd recently purchased, today, October 13, was the anniversary of King Philip the Fair arresting the Knights Templar in France in 1307 as part of his strike against their order (October 13 fell on a Friday that year, incidentally, and it's been suggested by some that this contributed to the ominous reputation of Friday the Thirteenth), and I decided as a result to read a couple of stories Rosa had written involving Donald, Scrooge McDuck, and Donald's nephews with the Knights Templar (which, for an additional bonus, worked Columbus into them as well), "The Crown of the Crusader Kings" and "The Old Castle's Other Secret". The latter is particularly worth reading, including some very effective family drama between Scrooge and his sister Matilda.
Todd Jensen
posted @ Mon, Oct 13, 2025 9:39:09 pm EDT from 68.99.93.213
