Columbus Day

Today, 10/14/2013, as you know, is also Columbus Day. I remember chanting as a kid, "in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue, better than I can do in 1962", I learned of his quest to find financing for his trip, the names of his ships, how he first landed in the New World (to him) at Grand Cayman, and how the Spanish came to establish permanent settlements on an island they called Hispaniola, and how he squabbled with Spain over the money till the end of his life.

There are those who claim that Columbus deserve no holiday named after him as many before him had discovered America, for the Chinese and Vikings being the ones most mention. There can be no doubt that there were people here before Columbus made his trip looking for a sea route to India, and thinking he has indeed found India he called the people he found here Indians, a name that has stuck until this day. Which brings up an irony, the Americans do not mind being called Indians, which they are not, but do mind being called red skins, which they are.

I was recently reading about some cities discovered in South America that are over 20,000 years old, and who's builders are long gone. This means that the ones who came down the Bering Strait 12,000 years ago were invaders, just like the Europeans who Columbus opens the way for.

Even if the Chinese, Vikings, and whomever else did in fact land upon America's shores it matters not for it was not their presents that shaped American into what it is today, it was the ones who followed Columbus that did that. So happy Columbus Day.