I posted a comment on a site I belong to and was reminded by someone else's comment that today's young people have been dumbed down and I keep forgetting how much they have been dumbed down. Also, you have to understand that I have been extremely curious all of my life and enjoy researching and studying things most people don't. At 67, I have studied and learned a lot more than most people will ever know so I share what I can with others.

Therefore, I am going to share something very important that most people today just don't know because you can bet your politically correct schools won't teach you.

Mohammad founded Islam and started waging war against the planet, basically as a bandit or criminal stealing from helpless people and enslaving them, in about 630 to 640 AD, almost 200 years after Western Rome fell in 474 AD. The Muslims quickly conquered up into Iraq and Iran to the east and began trying to conquer the Byzantine Empire taking Israel. After his wife murdered him, Islam conquered North Africa, Sicily, Spain, and Portugal along with Southern France and Southern Italy. Then they finally conquered the Byzantine Empire and into Eastern Europe. It is estimated that Islam murdered several hundred million people and tortured, robbed, bullied, and enslaved most of the rest. That is the nutshell history lesson for the religion of peace.

On the land, they controlled all of the trade routes between Asia and Europe and taxed goods moving through their areas so that the price of goods went through the roof forcing up prices in Europe and causing the "Dark Ages". It wasn't just the fall of Rome, which caused the European Dark Ages but mostly the rise of Islam.

It didn't take the Muslims long to realize that, if they took to the sea, they could raid merchant ships, steal those goods for themselves and take the crews and passengers as slaves, quickly increasing their wealth even more. The Muslim pirates took quick control of the Mediterranean Sea and kept it until the US sent its Navy and Marines to destroy the Barbary Pirates in places like Tripoli, North Africa in the early 1800s. The Muslim pirates controlled the Mediterranean Sea for about 1,000 years.

This piracy was carried out in two ways, first, by raiding ships and taking their cargos and slaves and, second, by raiding coastal villages for loot and slaves. The raiding of coastal villages took place as far north as Ice Land, Ireland, and England until the US destroyed the Barbary Pirates. It is estimated that the Muslims took more than one million slaves just from European coastal villages, mostly in the Mediterranean Sea.

After Spain finally freed herself from Muslim rule and oppression in 1492 and began the Spanish Inquisition to rid themselves of the Jews who had helped the Muslims conquer Spain and persecute Christians, Spain began looking for alternate routes to get around the Muslim pirates because Spain was impoverished by the Muslims. This strategy had already been tried before by European nations by sailing all the way around the southern tip of Africa but the Muslims also controlled the Indian Ocean and raided European merchant ships there.

The Europeans already knew the planet is round but they didn't know exactly what was to the west of Europe. It was at this time, while Spain's economy was in ruins, with newly freed Spain in financial dire straits and she was looking for a way around the Muslim pirates that Christopher Columbus approached Queen Elizabeth of Spain with the idea of Spain funding an exploration voyage to the west to find a route to India and the Far East the Muslims didn't control. Spain was too impoverished to fund the voyage so Queen Elizabeth sold her personal jewels to fund the trip.

When Columbus reached the Caribbean Islands, he thought he had reached islands just east of India, which is why he called the indigenous people Indians, which they are still called today. When the Spanish explorers finally realized they had not reached India but an unknown land they named the Americas, they began looking for a passage through or around the American Continents. To the north, they looked for the fabled "Northwest Passage" and they kept traveling south in pursuit of a southern passage until Magellan finally found a passage, the Magellan Straits, at the southern tip of South America and navigated all of the way around the planet for the first time.

At the same time, the French, then British, and finally Americans explored the St Laurence River, Mississippi River, and Missouri River in hopes of finding a Northwest Passage to the Far East and India but there was no northern passage through or around the North American Continent, which is why the US later built the Panama Canal to reach the Far East for trading.

When the Europeans found the American continents and started stealing from, colonizing, and trading with the Americans, A.K.A. Indians, the Muslim pirates simply expanded operations into the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean, which forced all Western nations, including the US, to continue to pay very high taxes as protection money to protect their merchant ships from the Muslim pirates.

Most of the people don't know it but most of those Hollywood romanticized pirates were Muslims, which is why they were so brutal, ruthless, murdering, cruel, and took slaves. Historians estimate that less than 25% of those romanticized murdering pirates were non Muslims. Even when the captains were Europeans, the crews were mostly Muslims who had been taken on board in Muslim ports like Tripoli.

The rulers of the Muslim controlled and heavily armed ports along the Barbary Coast on North Africa required the pirates to pay protection money to stay in the safe harbors so the Muslim rulers were making money coming and going.

This Muslim protection racket continued to suppress the Euro-American economies until the US finally said, "Screw it" and invaded the Barbary Coast, especially Tripoli, destroying the Muslim pirate enclaves, their ships, which were burned and sunk, and their crews.

For about 150 years, the piracy stopped but has recently resumed, once again by the Muslims, who have never been anything but bandits and pirates, stealing from and enslaving others, even each other.

That is the real reason why Christopher Columbus sailed west and Europe continued searching for trade routes to the west for almost 400 years; they were trying to find a trade route that wasn't controlled by the murdering, stealing Muslims.

BTW, in the US Marine anthem, the first line says "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli". This line is referring to the US Marine Corp military action when they conquered Mexico City (the halls of Montezuma) in the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848 and the destruction of the Muslim Barbary Pirates in North Africa (the shores of Tripoli) in the First and Second Barbary Wars, 1801-1805 under President Jefferson and 1815 under President Monroe.

Suddenly, pirates aren't quite so romantic, are they?

BTW, did you know that the infamous Ottoman Empire of Turkey, which mostly controlled Muslim piracy, made a fortune from Muslim piracy, caused so much trouble and killed so many people, was also Muslim?

The PC schools and media rarely tell you that.

That is what Erdogan is trying to revive or start, the second Muslim Ottoman Empire and he has started out pretty well by stealing oil from Iraq and Syria, you know, a little Muslim piracy stealing from others, even other Muslims.

Get the picture yet? Gee, you don't think our devout Muslim dictator-in-chief, Obama, is practicing Muslim piracy by stealing oil from places like Libya, Syria, and Iraq, do you?

I bet that turned on a few light bulbs.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

You better....