On May 4, 1493, some venal sleasoid using the alias Alexander VI issued ths Papal Bullshit Inter caetera, purporting to divvy up ownereship of the new world, its resources and its occupants between Portugal and Spain. This was to unleash a hellish torrent of conquest, rape, torture, enslavement and more upon said new world.
Without even waiting to see if that was a sufficient "gift" to the fledgling "Most Catholic Majesties" of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, he decided to extend their rapacity permit to all lands of the Pacific and did so by issuing the Bullshit Dudum siquidem, unleashing the torrent of evil upon the Pacific Ocean, it's lands, and people. This piece of evildoing issued forth like an imp from hades on September 26, 1493.
This caused much consternation on the part of Portugal's King John II, who considered himself to already have a claim to some of that turf as then understood. Accordingly, he negotiated directly with Their "Most Catholic Majesties" a treaty known as the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed on July 7, 1494, and blessed by "Alexander VI's" replacement, some stooge using the alias "Julius II". The date of that blessing is, it seems unclear, 1505 or perhaps 1506, but the date isn't too critical, the horrors it unleashed are. None of the players, of course, had any legitimate rights to own or control anything or anybody, but illegitimacy has never been a roadblock for colonizers, colonists, imperialists, and other arch criminals and evil doers.
TODAY, as all of the anniversaries of the key dates in the above sequence should be a cause for at least a modicum of mourning.
cross posted from Caucus99percent.com