Holidays come and go faster than the time we spend thinking about them. Columbus Day is one of those holidays. History.com states ¨Columbus Day is a national holiday established in 1937, and it commemorates the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the New World on October 12, 1492. The holiday honors Columbus’s achievements and celebrates Italian-American heritage.” Columbus was an Italian explorer who set sail for Asia, but found the Americas and believed it was Asia. Columbus Day is a huge achievement for the world because the Americas were discovered.
As for celebrating Columbus Day, History.com states “The first Columbus Day celebration took place in 1792, when New York’s Columbian, Tamnony Hill, held an event to commerate the historic landing’s 300th anniversary. In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation encouraging Americans to mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus voyage and have a patriotic festival. By 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Columbus Day as a national holiday, a result of intense lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, an influential Catholic fractional befits organization.” Columbus Day became more traditional to American history, however some questioned its true value. Anti-immigration groups in the U.S. complained Columbus Day shouldn’t be a holiday since it had an association with Catholicism. Native Americans and other groups found the holiday the result of the colonization of the Americans and the deaths of millions of Native Americans. European settlers brought many illnesses to the New World causing diseases to spread, killing many natives of the land. People found it wrong that when Columbus was the governor of Hispania; he took power over people through unfair treatment such as torture. The mixed feelings about Columbus Day are all around the nation and the world.
Now today, the holiday of Columbus Day has been kept by only few states or cities. According to Pewresearch, they state only 23 states really count Columbus Day as a national holiday to give off for employees. Many places around the world took action and changed the name of Columbus Day for a different meaning. History.com says “In 2002, Venezuela renamed Columbus Day to ‘Día de la Resistencia Indígena’ (Day of the Indigenous Resistance).” Places in the U.S. replaced Columbus Day with many other names including: Berkeley’s Indigenous Peoples Day, South Dakota’s Native American Day, Hawaii’s Discovery’s Day, etc.” Many have replaced this holiday because they don’t find Columbus as the original founder of the Americas.
According to NPR “In 1925, President Calvin Coolidge told thousands of people at the Minnesota State Fair that he believed that Leif Erikson was the first European to discover America. Erickson is believed to have arrived in Canada about 5,000 years before Columbus’s arrival. This belief supported Norse Sagas which believed that vikings reached America about 1,000 years ago. This led to Wisconsin becoming the first state to celebrate Leif Erikson Day, in which other states followed.” Still, Columbus Day is celebrated amongst some on every second Monday in October; it was originally held on October 12. History is an important key to understanding the past. By celebrating history, we are less likely to forget it.