From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Columbus Day
First Landing of Columbus on the Shores of the New World, after the painting by Discoro Téofilo de la Puebla
Observed by	the Americas, Spain
Type	Historical
Significance	A celebration honoring Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the Americas in 1492
Date	second Monday in October (USA); October 12 (actual/traditional)
2007 date	October 8 (USA)
2008 date	October 13 (USA)
Related to	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.

Columbus Day is a holiday celebrating the anniversary of the October 12, 1492, arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas. Similar holidays, celebrated as Día de la Raza (Day of the Race) 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, Discoverer's Day in Hawaii, and the newly renamed (as of 2002) Día de la Resistencia Indígena (Day of Indigenous Resistance) in Venezuela, commemorate the same event.

Further information: Christopher Columbus, European colonization of the Americas

Columbus Day commemorates Columbus' famed expedition to the West, in which he hoped to find a naval route to India. Instead, he found an entire continent that was mostly unknown to Europe, Africa, and Asia at the time. While other Europeans had sporadically visited the Americas earlier, and there are varied theories of even earlier contact by East Asians, Phoenicians, and others, Columbus' expedition triggered the great wave of European interest in the New World. Unlike the earlier visitors, Columbus aggressively popularized his discoveries and arranged for return voyages.

The first Columbus Day celebration was held in 1792, when New York City celebrated the 300th anniversary of his landing in the New World. In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison called upon the people of the United States to celebrate Columbus Day on the 400th anniversary of the event.

Italian-Americans observe Columbus Day as a celebration of their heritage, the first occasion being in New York City on October 12, 1866.^{[1] [2]} Columbus Day was popularized as a holiday in the United States by a lawyer, a son of Genoese immigrants who came to California. During the 1850s, Genoese immigrants settled and built ranches along the Sierra Nevada foothills. As the gold ran out, these skilled "Cal-Italians", from the Apennines, were able to prosper as self-sufficient farmers in the Mediterranean climate of Northern California. San Francisco has the second oldest Columbus Day celebration, with Italians having commemorated it there since 1869.

This lawyer then moved to Colorado, which had a population of Genoese 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 federal holiday.

Since 1971, the holiday has been commemorated in the U.S. on the second Monday in October, the same day as Thanksgiving in neighboring Canada. It is generally observed today by banks, the bond market, the U.S. Postal Service, federal offices, and most state government offices; however, most businesses, stock exchanges, and schools remain open.

The city of Berkeley celebrates Indigenous People's Day instead of Columbus Day.

The Columbus Day parade in Denver has been protested by American Indian groups and their supporters for nearly two decades.^[3] Denver has the longest running parade in the United States. ^[4]

Further information: Discoverer's Day

Discoverer's Day is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Hawaii; it honors Captain James Cook as the first European to document Hawaiian society.

Hawaii does not officially honor Columbus day and instead celebrates Discoverer's Day on the same day, i.e., on the second Monday of each October. While many in Hawaii still celebrate the life of Columbus on Columbus Day, the alternative holiday also honors James Cook, the British navigator that became the first person to record the coordinates of the Hawaiian Islands and share with the world the existence of the ancient Hawaiian people and society. Some people interpret the holiday as a celebration of all discoveries relative to the ancient and modern societies of Hawaii.

Many Native Hawaiians decry the celebration of both Columbus and Cook, known to have committed acts of violent subjugation of native people. Discoverer's Day is a day of protest for some advocacy groups. A popular protest site is the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace and the Chancery building of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu. Such advocacy groups have been commemorating the Discoverer's Day holiday as their own alternative, Indigenous Peoples Day. The week is called Indigenous Peoples Week.

Columbus Day is not a legal holiday in Nevada, but it is a day of observance. Schools and state, city and county government offices are open for business on Columbus Day.^[5]

In the state of South Dakota, the day is officially a state holiday known as "Native American Day", not Columbus Day.^[6]

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 race"), 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 1957, when it was changed to the "Día de la Hispanidad" ("Hispanic Day").

In 2002, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela changed the name to "Día de la Resistencia Indígena" ("Day of Indigenous Resistance"). This is celebrated on Columbus day, instead of celebrating Christopher Columbus, they celebrate the different races.

Opposition to the holiday cites the fact that Columbus and many of the conquistador followers treated the American Indians with great cruelty. Columbus directly brought about the demise of many Taino (Arawak) Indians on the island of Hispaniola,^{[citation needed]} and the arrival of the Europeans indirectly caused the deaths of many indigenous peoples by bringing diseases previously unknown in the New World. An estimated 85 percent of the Native American population was wiped out within 150 years of Columbus' arrival in America, due largely to diseases such as smallpox, that spread among Native American populations. Additionally, war and the seizing of land and material wealth by European colonists also contributed to the decline of the indigenous populations in America.^[7]

In the summer of 1990, 350 Native Americans, representatives from all over the hemisphere, met in Quito, Ecuador, at the first intercontinental gathering of indigenous people in the Americas, to mobilize against the quincentennial celebration of Columbus Day. The following summer, in Davis, California, more than a hundred Native Americans gathered for a follow-up meeting to the Quito conference. They declared October 12, 1992, International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People.

The largest ecumenical body in the United States, the National Council of Churches, called on Christians to refrain from celebrating the Columbus quincentennial, saying, "What represented newness of freedom, hope, and opportunity for some was the occasion for oppression, degradation and genocide for others."^[8]

• 1421 hypothesis
• Discoverer's Day
• Discovery Day
• Leif Erikson Day
• Population history of American indigenous peoples
• Thanksgiving (Canada)
• 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

• Christopher Columbus — An Italian-American perspective on Columbus Day, from the OSIA
• Today in History: October 89 — An article about Columbus Day at The Library of Congress
• Native American Day in South Dakota
• Transform Columbus Day Alliance — Denver-based organization with background on opposition to Columbus Day
• Columbus Day Activities for Teachers
• http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=5B0330E9-F379-4533-96BE-6B628C93160E