Tourism Minister David Allen also deserves some credit for changing the date of the Quincentennial of Bermuda's discovery from 2003 to 2005.

But the U-turn should be a salutary reminder of the risks of using history for marketing purposes and for doing your research first rather than shooting from the lip.

Mr. Allen trotted out Bermuda Maritime Museum director Dr. Edward Harris and curator Dr. Clarence Maxwell before announcing the U-turn. They said new research showed that Bermuda could not have been discovered, at least by Juan de Bermudez, before 1505.

In fact, as Joyce Hall pointed out both before Mr. Allen backtracked and this week, that fact was already well known. Research in the 1990s based on primary research on the Spanish archives had already demonstrated it, so it is strange that Dr. Harris and Dr. Maxwell - both good historians in their own rights - were needed to find out the same thing again.

This is not to say that Bermuda should not celebrate the Quincentennial. Any opportunity to look at our heritage should be taken. But its primary function should not done to attract visitors to the Island. If visitors come as a result of the celebrations, fine. But this should be a Bermudian celebration first.

At any rate, the 400th anniversary of the settlement of the Island in 2009 is the more important date, since it is from that date that the history of the Island's continuous human habitation begins.