President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed October 12th Columbus Day in 1937. In 1971, the holiday was changed to occur every second Monday in October.
We get it. Three-day weekends and sales rock.
We'd be remiss, however, if we didn't ask ourselves a question. One question to which so many Americans are becoming attuned.
Is Christopher Columbus someone we should be celebrating?
How can we overlook the fact that Columbus and his crew were largely responsible for the murder and enslavement of entire races of people?
Do we want to have the day off of work to celebrate someone who enslaved young girls, murdered babies, and took advantage of so many human beings?
Seven cities have decided not to overlook these atrocities. They've renamed the holiday Indigenous Peoples' Day, to honor the original inhabitants of the islands where Columbus landed.
Check out this, and other facts about Christopher Columbus below.
1. Christopher Columbus knew the world was round
The typical rhetoric surrounding Columbus Day is that good old Chris discovered that the world wasn't flat.
That was simply not the case.
Pythagoras wrote about the earth as a sphere in the sixth century B.C., and was followed by Aristotle and Euclid. Historians say there is not a doubt that an educated person in Columbus's time would be well aware that the earth was round.
[anad]
In fact, Columbus owned a copy of Ptolemy's Geography, which discusses Earth's shape as a sphere.
Columbus never thought he'd fall off the end of the world. He just didn't know how big the Atlantic ocean was.
[via Washington Post]
2. He never stepped foot in North America
Columbus took four separate trips and landed on various Caribbean islands that are now the Bahamans during all of them. In addition, he explored Central and South America, but never North America.
He later landed in Hispaniola, present day-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Upon arrival, Columbus's ship, the Santa Maria, was wrecked. According to Columbus's writings, the Arawaks worked for hours to save the crew and cargo.
In response, Columbus seized control of the land in the name of Spain, and enslaved the locals. He wrote in his journal:
"As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts."
[via Indian Country Today]
3. He decimated the Native Americans
naturalbeautyoftheb But yet we're celebrating this "great hero" for what he did. If Germany doesn't celebrate Hitler, then America shouldn't celebrate Columbus Day. He killed so many of my ancestors. #columbusday #fuckhim #NativeAmericans #thisistheirland
In his diary from his first trip to the Americas, Columbus wrote: "The Indians are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone."
This would seem like a lovely observation, if it weren't for the words that followed.
"They would make fine servants," Columbus wrote. "With fifty men we could subjugate them and make them do whatever we want."
Apparently, "whatever we want," included cutting them in half to test the sharpness of blades, beheading them in contests, and throwing Natives into boiling soup.
He also rewarded his commanders with sex slaves, girls who were only 9 or 10 years old.
[via Mic]
4. He used torture and mutilation
Columbus founded a settlement in the Caribbean on the north shore of Hispaniola called Isabella. As governor, he used torture and mutilation to govern.
Some of his crew was hanged for disobedience, and he was principally interested in selling slaves.
[anad2]
The monarchy sent an agent to Santo Domingo in 1498 and had Columbus arrested and returned to Spain in chains. He spent six weeks in jail before King Ferdinand ordered his release.
[via Fsmitha]
5. Everybody hates Chris
Berkeley California replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day in 1992 to honor the original inhabitants of the islands where Columbus landed. Seattle and Minneapolis did the same in October 2014, and seven cities have followed their lead since then.
Lawrence, Kansas changed the holiday to Indigenous Peoples' Day on Tuesday, and Portland, Oregon and Bexar County in Texas did so on Wednesday.
South Dakota calls the holiday Native American Day, Alabama celebrates a combination of Columbus Day and American Indian Heritage Day, and Hawaii calls it Discovery Day.
[via Mic]
Check out Please Tell Us You Caught Amy Schumer on SNL This Weekend.
[Feature Image Courtesy hiQuotes]