Columbus Day and Christopher Columbus – a History — In California I’m surprised that they have not banned this holiday since all the schools here seem to despise Columbus as a slave trader and some sort of unindicted criminal. I’m never quite sure who is pulling the strings on these sorts of attitudes but it’s an eye-roller when your kids come home with these notions. The state wants to call it Indigenous Peoples Day. Ideally they’d like to change the name and then kill all white people too leaving the state to the Mexicans who have no problem celebrating Columbus Day. My advice: do not move here.
One of the first known celebrations marking the discovery of the “New World” by Christopher Columbus was in 1792, when a ceremony organized by the Colombian Order was held in New York City honoring Christopher Columbus and the 300th anniversary of his landing in the Bahamas. Then, on October 12, 1866 the Italian population of New York organized the first celebration of the discovery of America. Three years later, in 1869 Italians in San Francisco celebrated October 12 calling it C-Day.
To mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus voyage, in 1892, President Benjamin Harrison made a commemorative proclamation. But it was Colorado, in 1905, that became the first state to observe a Columbus Day. Since 1920 the day has been celebrated annually, and in 1937 President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed every October 12 as Columbus Day. Thats where it remained until 1971 when Congress declared it a federal public holiday on the second Monday in October.
C-Day? In San Francisco? Cripes.
#26, Ben
Good comments. As an aside, the idea of Vikings with horns on their helmets isn’t true. Hollywood myth.
Mr Dvorak–
32 Comments, all neutral or providing references as to the tyrannical slave creating insane belligerent nature of Columbus.
Do you want to give up what you were taught to believe as a child, or take lessons from what your children are likewise being taught?
34. They were from kuzcoland right? Damn illegals.
35. Sometimes, I think JCD just likes to stir shit up. We know he doesnt believe that shit, hmmmmm? Or he truly doesnt want any of us to move there.
Columbus was the precursor of the Mac user, he spent a LOT of jewels to get 3 shoddy boats and “thought” different, ie “Since everyone’s going to the east to the Indies, I’ll Think different and go West.”
#6
“Europeans had been aware of the Americas for 500 years since the Vikings had discovered it.”
Yeah but since the Vikings are not Chrisitians nobody gave them credit for anything.
Oh yeah! Columbus is BAAAADD guy, it’s not like Muslims didn’t enslave captured Christians, it’s not like Indians didn’t scalp each other.
Only white people are evil, of course.
Illegal immigration is just fine, unless it’s Christopher Columbus immigrating to the Americas 😉
The truth is that the Europeans were evil. This is undeniable: they made Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Napoleon, the evil Popes, Bloody Mary, Oliver Cromwell and they say George Bush is descended from the British Royal family.
The reason America was a successful country is all the good Europeans fled Europe to go live somewhere good away from all the bad ones.
In fact, it was the bad Europeans that started slavery and mostly lived in the South until the good Europeans decided to defeat them in the civil war.
A lot of people think the atrocities dealt to American Indians happened “long, long ago”. IN MY LIFETIME I met two elders who as children were kidnapped by the government, sent to a Christian “camp” to live away from their families in the name of being “civilized”. They remember being beaten every time they tried to speak in their native language. Many of these people are still afraid today to gather in groups to worship or practice any of the old traditions as they have learned firsthand what an overbearing government can do in the name of “save the children”.
And yet, these two gentlemen were military veterans who proudly served our country in WWII and in Korea .
This separation from family life caused a great deal of social problems as these children were unable to learn rearing skills from their parents. These multi-generational problems continue into today’s generation.
#11..Mike Voice….sorry dude….your author friend lost me when he said that Columbus destroyed 8 million carrib’s with in 21 years after landing. There has never been 8 million natives living on the Islands….
If you added, the Aztecs, the Maya, and the Inca, you might get 9 million at the time of the conquest, but there just isn’t any way that 8 million souls lived in those islands….actually, he claims that 8 million had been wiped out….which means even more than 8 million were living there.
I call BS on your book.
We never seem to get tired of judgeing people of past generations by our standards. It’s a common thing for most people to do, but especially by the PC masters trying to show how bad white folks are. Columbus and others like him weren’t any better or worse than their comtemparies. We would think of them as a bit over the top, but we judge by todays standards.
Life’s a bitch, always has been…….then some PC dip shit writes a history book…..yikes!!!
#41 Joshua writes… “We never seem to get tired of judgeing people of past generations by our standards. It’s a common thing for most people to do, but especially by the PC masters trying to show how bad white folks are.”
I find it interesting when people subscribe to moral relativism when historical context is the variable, yet they’ll often discard their relativism in favor of moral absolutism when culture becomes the primary variable in the comparison.
It’s this convenient mix of relativism and absolutism that allows people to excuse cherished historical figures of sometimes horrific acts, while simultaneously vilifying present-day figures from foreign cultures for practices no more repulsive. Maybe this is why our schools’ history textbooks are often written with such selective memory, to make this process easier and more dilemma-free.
By the way, Joshua, tossing in the term “PC” to somehow shame those of us who largely reject your historically-based moral relativism isn’t as effective as you seem to think, but it was a nice touch 😉
#5 – From the link you posted…
Denver’s parade, which was started in 1907, has a troubled history of arrests and confrontations between Columbus supporters and detractors.
Troubled? I would have said “proud” history of arrests and confrontations. After all, no act as a citizen is more noble than the act of dissent.
Every year it’s the same thing…
The civilized world was supposed to leave a bunch of stone age natives in charge of one third of the earths land mass.
Europeans especially are obesessed with the “plight” of the American Indian.
Everyone seems to think that North America was some sort of paradise inhabited by peaceful natives living in harmony with nature and each other before europeans arrived. Bull…
Indians were doing a good job of slaughtering each other long before we showed up and started slaughtering them.
“Indians were doing a good job of slaughtering each other long before we showed up and started slaughtering them.”
Territorial wars happen everywhere, Europe too.
45. By that logic, lets just slaughter half of Africa, theyre just stone age natives anyway.
Speaking of memorable dates in history for October. It was on the 13th of October (a friday) in 1307, that Philip IV sent his guard to capture all the Templar Knights and have them tortured into confusing false deeds (because Philip was in deep debt to the order). Later, most of them were burned at the stake. It was all about money and politics. Not any moral issues. Not too dissimilar to the present day reasons for the war in Iraq.
So here’s to 700 years to repeating history. Really bad history.
#44, OFTLO/TP, After all, no act as a citizen is more noble than the act of dissent.
What does one expect from Fox Snooze? I can’t disagree.
Sorry, Paisanos, but Colon wasn’t Italian. he spoke Spanish, he was raised in spain, he wrote in Spanish…..he might’ve even been born in Spain…either way his crew was Spanish and he was working for Spain….he’s just an Italian-born(maybe) Spaniard. Sorry.
Anyways, about half of Italy belonged to the Spanish Kingdom of Aragon so Italians had to do whatever the Spanish wanted them to do which wasn’t very fair.
The reason why schools keep teaching such garbage is summed up by George Will in this column. Its about schools of social work, but teachers ahve the same pressures.
http://tinyurl.com/2vnfuc
How can Columbus Day be considered a holiday? What are people celebrating? The deaths of innocent bystanders? The wealth, traditions, culture of first nations? How do the Americans get by with not learning at an early age, of how cruel and horrifying this man really was? All he was worried for was himself, all he wanted was gold. How is that honorable? The people that were murdered, I mean, I just do not understand how he is an icon in the USA. In my opinion, he is nothing more than a theif, murderer, and a terrifying nightmare.
i hate you jk jk jk jk
i love you you are sooo hot i am only 10 but i want to marry you!!!!!!!! please say yes
for all you people complaining about columbus day, YOU NEED A LIFE. it seems that every year people are trying to eliminate all that has happened in the past of this country. Geus what people, YOU WERE NOT HERE WHEN ALL THE PROBLEMS YOU HAVE WITH HIM HAPPENED. this country is so affraid to stand for what it was built on because of all the liberals wanting to destroy the past of this great country. someone said something about colorado, yea there is a city to look to, a bunch of idiots acting there age. as it is going, there will be nothing left for this country to celebrate, cant mention GOD, cant say Christmas, but we can sure bow down to political corectness and forget what made this country great. keep trying to eliminate things like columbus day and eventually you are going to run out of things to make your self feel better about, then what will you do?
Christopher Columbus has a heart of a pig and a brain of a pig !. He is an evil, brutal, coldblooded, bloodthirsty genocidal murderer who abducted, enslaved and killed native Americans and stole their lands and gold !. He was also a mindless jerk for thinking he was in the East Indies !. Abolish Columbus Day now !.