I didn’t know Columbus Day was an ode to Italians until a few years ago hearing the latest griping from Indians (yes), which I guess pitted their PCness against a MA/Boston Italian group hosting a parade.
Never heard of that connection before then. Ever.
Dontcha know, he came to the new world in order to annihilate and enslave Indians, and he did it on behalf of his father’s Italian gonads, which infected him forevermore with racism. Nothing universal or constructive in this “discovery” of the New World. He was just a forerunner of Mussolini’s fascists./s