Christopher Columbus sailed west for Spain and made landfall in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492. He did not “discover” a vacant planet. He did open a lasting connection between Europe and the Americas — the crossing that made the later United States possible.
Congress made October 12 a federal holiday in 1934, in no small part because Italian-Americans insisted their explorer belonged in the civic year. The Uniform Monday Holiday Act later moved the observance to the second Monday of October. The name on the books remains Columbus Day.
Celebrate the courage of the crossing, the seamanship, and the immigrant communities who kept the day. A serious patriotism can honor the navigator without pretending the centuries that followed were simple. Perseverance is also Italian-American families who built parishes, businesses, and honor rolls in this country and asked only that the calendar tell the truth about how the hemisphere was joined.