Columbus day is worth observing if for no other reason than it marked the first time the entire world was really connected. It’s not a story of conquest, it’s a story of connectivity. Leif Ericsson and other Vikings may have landed in North America and explored it’s coast, but it didn’t trigger anything like the Columbian exchange.
The Columbian exchange changed the world. We know when it happened, we know who did it. Columbus may not have been special in that someone else would have eventually done the same thing, but it was Columbus and he can’t be extricated from the event. Other hinge moments in history don’t have this amount of evidence and clarity.
I’m not sure we should give Columbus any honors. After all, unlike his critics, he wasn’t prefect.
Agreed.
We refuse to teach this to our children anymore.
The importance of these events to world history are profound, yet we willfully try to forget they ever happened.