User:Historian1208

The impulse to register on Wikipedia was given by the boss of a company I partly work for (Bauer Kompressoren). She said that I could create an article about her company, and well, I was happy to accept this impulse, because I have been thinking about becoming active on Wikipedia for a long time anyway. My specialty is the history of discovery and conquest of the Americas in the 15th and 16th century and there with emphasis on the events in northern South America and the Caribbean. I did my PhD on the Conquista of the Americas and have even been cited as a reference on German Wikipedia. I can contribute important additions and improvements on actors of the Conquista such as Diego de Ordás or El Dorado. Another impetus to become active on Wikipedia is the trouble one can now get into because of Wikipedia: I write for Spektrum der Wissenschaft (the German edition of the Scientific American) from time to time, e.g. this article, and have to experience again and again that outdated or incomplete Wikipedia articles trigger discussions with Wikipedia-reading editors. So I hope, also in my own interest, to contribute to the qualitative improvement of Wikipedia. Besides my English one I also have a fade German Wikipedia account with almost the same name (Historiker1208).