there is this song by Randy Newman - the great nations of Europe. I highly recommend it as a history lesson :-( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxNQxu7PWKM

   ...
   Columbus sailed for India
   Found Salvador instead
   He shook hands with some Indians and soon they all were dead
   They got TB and typhoid and athlete's foot
   Diphtheria and the flu
   Excuse me great nations coming through!

   Hide your wives and daughters
   Hide your sons as well
   With the great nations of Europe you never can tell

   From where you and I are standing
   At the end of a century
   Europes have sprung up everywhere as even I can see
   But there on the horizon as a possibility
   Some bug from out of Africa might come for you and me
   Destroying everything in its path
   From sea to shining sea
   Like the great nations of Europe
   In the sixteenth century