spurgeonryan said:
|
Right, and it should be named for something meaningful, not just given the name of a completely unrelated president, who was president before Alaska was a state (and therefore he never presided over the mountain at all). A president who has no connection at all to Alaska, let alone the mountain.
The original inhabitants called it Denali, which means "high" or "tall". The Russians called it Bolshaya Gora, which is russian for big mountain (and is basically a translation of Denali). It was named "McKinley" by a gold prospector because he supported McKinley and McKinley was, at the time, running for president. And America being America, they decided that, rather than going with the original name of the mountain, or even the Russian variant, or even an English translation of the name, they decided to go with the gold prospector's name, because the president at the time, Woodrow Wilson, preferred it.
Meanwhile, the state of Alaska has officially called it Denali since 1975, and tried to get the Federal government to also officially change it around the same time. Do you know why the change didn't happen? An Ohio congressman, who happened to have McKinley's hometown in his district, blocked it.
That's right - it's been called McKinley all of your life (and then some) because of favouritism. Because of corruption and appearance rather than logic and reason.
