I was frankly surprised as I did research for this series of articles. I really thought that De Soto was a minor player with my education (not history either). That expedition that Spain considered a failure because he didn't find gold or the Northwest Passage was possibly the single biggest event on the entire continent. The measles and smallpox just decimated the whole center of the country, and the horses he (and Coronado in the SW) left behind changed the entire face of the US and Canada.

I really need to go to TB to see that monument.