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{{Infobox Holiday |
|holiday_name=Columbus Day
|image=Christopher_Columbus3.jpg
|caption=''First Landing of Columbus on the Shores of the New World'', after the painting by Discoro Téofilo de la Puebla
|observedby=the Americas, Spain
|date=second Monday in October (USA);
October 12 (actual/traditional)
|type=Historical
|significance=A celebration honoring Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the Americas in 1492
|relatedto='Día de la Raza' in many Latin American countries, 'Discovery Day' in the Bahamas, Hispanic Day in Spain, 'Día de las Culturas' in Costa Rica and 'Día de la Resistencia Indígena' in Venezuela. Also, Thanksgiving in Canada, which falls on the same date.
|date=October (USA)
|date=holiday celebrated in many countries in the Americas, commemorating the date of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World on October 12, 1492. Similar holidays, celebrated as 'Día de la Raza' (Day of the People) in many countries in Latin America, 'Día de las Culturas' (Day of the Cultures) in Costa Rica, 'Discovery Day' in the Bahamas, ''Día de la Hispanidad'' in Spain, and the newly-renamed (as of 2002) ''Día de la Resistencia Indígena'' (Day of Indigenous Resistance) in Venezuela, commemorate the same event.

Contents

United States observance

Día de la Raza

Opposition to Columbus Day

See also

References

External links

United States observance

Italian-Americans observe Columbus Day as a celebration of their heritage. Columbus Day was introduced as a U.S. national holiday by a lawyer, a son of Genovese immigrants coming around-the-horn. During the 1850s, Genovese immigrants settled and built ranches along the Sierra Foothills. As the gold ran out, these skilled "Cal-Italians", from the Alpenino hills, were able to prosper as self-sufficient farmers in the Mediterranean climate of Northern California. San Francisco has the oldest Columbus Day celebration, with Italians having commemorated it there since 1869.
This lawyer then moved to Colorado, which had a population of Genovese miners, and where, in 1907, the first state-wide celebration was held. In 1937, at the behest of the Knights of Columbus (a Catholic fraternal service organization named for the voyager), President Franklin Delano Roosevelt set aside Columbus Day as a United States holiday.
Since 1971, the holiday has been commemorated in the U.S. on the , the same day as Thanksgiving in neighboring Canada. However, it is generally only observed today by banks, the Post Office, and most governments and schools but not businesses or stock exchanges.

Día de la Raza

The date of Columbus' arrival in the Americas is celebrated in Latin America (and in some Latino communities in the USA) as the ''Día de la Raza'' ("day of the people"), commemorating the first encounters of Europe and Native Americans. The day was first celebrated in Argentina in 1917, Venezuela in 1921, Chile in 1923, and Mexico in 1928.
The day was also celebrated under this title in Spain until 1958, when it was changed to the "Día de la Hispanidad."
In 2002, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela changed the name to Día de la Resistencia Indígena (Day of Indigenous Resistance).

Opposition to Columbus Day

Columbus day is not celebrated in Minnesota; however, in 2006, city offices in Minneapolis were closed, as well as libraries across the Twin Cities. [1] In the state of South Dakota, the day is officially a state holiday known as "Native American Day", not Columbus Day.[2]
Opposition to the holiday cites the fact that the arrival of Columbus in America was a positive experience for Europeans only. For indigenous people, Columbus directly (with his murderous policies towards the Taino (Arawak) Indians on the island of Hispainola) and indirectly brought about the demise of their history and culture. An estimated 85% of the Indian population was wiped out within 150 years of Columbus' arrival in America. This decimation was largely due to diseases such as smallpox, which were both accidentally and deliberately spread among American Indian populations, as well as genocide and the seizing of land and material wealth by European colonists. ^[1]

See also

★ 1421 Hypothesis

★ Discoverer's Day

★ Discovery Day

★ Leif Erikson Day

★ Population history of American indigenous peoples

★ Thanksgiving (Canada)

References

1. Don't Know Much About American History by Kenneth C. Davis, pg. 10

External links

★ Christopher Columbus — An Italian-American perspective on Columbus Day, from the OSIA

★ Today in History: October 12 — An article about Columbus Day at The Library of Congress

★ Native American Day in South Dakota

★ Columbus Day Activities for Teachers