Columbus Day, it seems, is not a very popular holiday, and is becoming more criticized as the years go by. Those of us who were in elementary school decades ago were taught he was the “discoverer” of America, the one who began it all here on 2 continents. Yet even then and long before, his contributions to history and geography were being abased, with evidence that the Vikings came before him, maybe the Polynesians and Japanese, possibly even the Irish or Welsh or more ancient Europeans. Regardless of his place in the order of journeys, he greatly underestimated the earth’s size and never realized (as far as is known) he had not reached Asia. He definitely was arrogant about his ‘discovery’ of a new route to the east, he did lie to his crews and the natives he encountered, and he had a lust for wealth and reward. But most recently, political correctness has made him into something like a terrorist—responsible for millions of “native Americans” being killed by indefensible diseases, in addition to thousands by the sword or the exhaustion of slavery. But with all this, the day he is believed to have reached an island in the Bahamas, October 12, 1492, is still a federal holiday in the United States and in many Latin American nations (but interestingly, today is Thanksgiving in Canada). But other than the closing of federal offices and those of 3 states and of some financial institutions, there seems to be little to mark this day but a few cities that still have parades, mostly Italian themed, and often protested against. What are your views about the holiday and what it supposedly celebrates?
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