Free Republic

A man who died five centuries ago has emerged as a symbol of something he never could have imagined. Sunday on his social media platform Truth Social, President Donald Trump announced his plan to restore the late-15th-century Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus to his once-lofty perch among the venerated heroes of Western and American history. The announcement served as a welcome sign that the president has not forgotten his promised National Garden of American Heroes. On Jan. 18, 2021, only two days before the end of his first presidential term, Trump issued Executive Order 13978. In Section 3, the president identified...

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson 🚨BREAKING: President Trump announces he is REINSTATING Columbus Day: “I’m bringing Columbus Day back from the ashes.” 12:50 PM · Apr 27, 2025

The process began when celebration of Washington’s Birthday moved to the third Monday in February. Around the same time, many states dropped their February celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Local governments have paired or replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day. The most recent calendar change is the addition of Juneteenth

Vice President Kamala Harris’ past statements in support of renaming Columbus Day resurfaced Monday, prompting the Trump campaign and others to accuse her of trying to “cancel American traditions.”During the Democratic nominee’s failed 2020 presidential campaign and vice presidential tenure, she repeatedly said in public remarks that she was supportive of labeling the federal holiday “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”“Count me in,” Harris told a voter who asked during a February 2019 campaign stop in Portsmouth, NH, whether she would change the name of the day via federal law.“People did not want to deal and accept and, most importantly, admit that we...

The first inhabitants of what is now the United States appeared around 15,000 to 20,000 years ago — a blip in time compared to the annals of some of the earliest places humans lived. Initially, population growth was slow due to the continent’s geographic isolation; significant increases began only after Europeans made their way to the Americas throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. By the 20th century, the U.S. population was experiencing rapid expansion — a trend that has slowed in recent years. Here’s a look at America’s changing population through history, from early prehistoric arrivals to the decline we’re...

The local ABC affiliate said Columbus Day has become a divisive issue given the role of Christopher Columbus in colonizing the New World.One middle school in the district actually held a workshop titled, “Columbus: Hero or Villain?”Local Republicans called the decision disappointing and shocking. Others called it an insult to those who served in the military.“One word: DISGUSTING to describe Stamford Connecticut,” one angry resident said. “The very backwards, ignorant and obvious communist school board has CANCELLED both Columbus day and Veterans day. The reason? They needed more school days for teaching. WHAT????”

In a controversial decision, the Stamford Board of Education has voted to remove Columbus Day and Veterans Day from the list of school holidays, requiring students to attend school on these dates. The decision, passed with a 5-3 vote, overruled previous years’ push-back from local veterans and Italian-Americans. The motion’s supporters, Joshua Esses, Michael Hyman, Gabriela Koc, Versha Munshi-South, and Antonia Better-Wirz, advocated for a shorter school year, arguing that a 181-day calendar extending into mid-June was too long.

The real Columbus, whom few today know much about, is an exemplary figure worthy of celebrating for many reasons. He was born in 1451 in the port city of Genoa, in what is now Italy, and was named Cristoforo Colombo. It has been said that he chose to call himself Christopher Columbus because he liked what this name meant. In Latin, Columbus means “dove” while Christopher means “Christ-bearer.” Some modern-day revisionist historians have taken cheap shots at Columbus, taking a chapter out of Lenin in charging him with being an imperialist. ...Seen from the big picture, Columbus Day is worth...

As leftists look to cancel Christopher Columbus and today’s annual holiday commemorating him — that is, the man who discovered this land that is the United States of America — they’re also looking to replace the great explorer with a day of their own. That new day for these cultural revolutionaries, celebrated all the way up to the level of their president, one Joseph Robinette Biden, is something called Indigenous Peoples’ Day.How ironic this is.Among the sins that leftists try to peg on Columbus is slavery. And yet, many of their indigenous peoples, including the so-called “civilized” among them, in...

Should we or shouldn’t we celebrate Columbus day? Every year the debate rages around this time whether the expansion of European civilization into the western hemisphere was a positive or negative development in human history.Of course Columbus himself was a complex figure, and there is much to love or hate about him depending on one’s point of view. The leftward side of the debate points out Columbus’s greed, ambition, pride and at times cruelty.And yet on the other side , one must admire the bravery, tenacity, and Columbus’ willingness to venture at great risk. Columbus also had a pious side...

In short, March 14, 1891 there were several Italians on trial. They were found "not guilty" which sent a mob of thousands in a frenzy (along with government). In the end, 11 Italians were lynched and numerous others treated harshly. As a consolation to this tragedy, our government gave them a day---Columbus day. A mob of tens of thousands of angry men surrounded a New Orleans jail, shouting angry slurs and calling for blood. By the time they were done, 11 men would be dead—shot and mutilated in an act of brutal mob violence that took place in front of...

The Democratic-led council’s Cultural Affairs Committee is set to hold a public hearing Tuesday on a proposal to yank artworks from city property dedicated to historical figures such as George Washington, Peter Stuyvesant and Christopher

A factual account of the life of Christopher Columbus, from his early years, through discoveries in the New World, to his death in 1506.

Fox News reported "Mexico’s president published an open letter to Pope Francis Saturday calling on the Roman Catholic Church to apologize for abuses of Indigenous peoples during the conquest of Mexico in the 1500s." https://www.foxnews.com/world/mexico-president-pope-francis-catholic-church-conquest?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20foxnews%2Fworld%20%28Internal%20-%20World%20Latest%20-%20Text%29 Columbus conquered America in 1492 shortly after Muslims conquered Constantinople (in 1453). Muslims have the same claim to places like Constantinople's Hagia Sophia or Jerusalem's Temple Mount as Columbus had of the Mayan Pyramids. While the Mexican President demands that Christians apologize for Columbus, Muslims celebrate (and are proud!) of the Conquests of Islam. While there are protests condemning Columbus and his statues are being...

A monument to abolitionist Harriet Tubman was revealed Thursday in Newark, New Jersey, after a statue of explorer Christopher Columbus was removed. “The city, which is now 48% Black and 37% Latino, according to the U.S. Census, was a known stop along the Underground Railroad, which was a network of routes escaped slaves followed to find freedom in states that had abolished slavery,” NBC News reported Friday. The current monument stands in place of the Columbus statue removed during the George Floyd riots that erupted in 2020, per Reuters:

Vandals doused the statue of Christopher Columbus in Central Park with red paint and scrawled “Murderer” across its stone pedestal, police said Monday. Detectives have a video of two people — possibly a man and a woman — defacing the statue at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday with spray paint, an NYPD spokesperson said The pair wrote “land back” on three sides of the bronze-and-granite statue and “Murderer” on another, police said. There’ve been no arrests, but the NYPD is investigating the incident. If caught, the spray-paint artists will likely be charged with vandalism and making graffiti, the spokesperson said. Metal...

An Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez protégé running for Congress supports removing the Christopher Columbus statue from Columbus Circle — which may be a big problem for the district she wants to represent. Brittany Ramos DeBarros is seeking to rep New York’s 11th Congressional District, which encompasses all of Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn — and is home to one of the largest Italian-American communities in the country. “It’s not in my district, so it wouldn’t be a top priority for me in Congress. but I support removing [the Columbus monument in Columbus Circle] and I think it would be ideal to...

Italian Sons and Daughters of America & more than 50 other major Italian-American organizations have sent a scathing letter to President Biden for becoming the first U.S. President to "effectively 'cancel' Columbus Day." The groups say they "strongly condemn" Biden's "hurtful, disparaging and insensitive" proclamation declaring Columbus Day to be Indigenous People's Day which, they say, "acknowledges that you obviously do not wish to establish a meaningful relationship with the Italian American community." The letter says: *Biden doesn't understand the history of Italian-Americans. *The largest mass lynching in American history was of 11 Italian immigrants in 1891. *The widespread smearing...

In addition to Columbus, Queen Isabella, venerated as a Servant of God in the Catholic Church, was covered up with a tapestry depicting a turtle and two ratsThe University of Notre Dame administration has now covered the school’s 12 murals depicting the life of Christopher Columbus, which generated protests and petitions from Native American groups on campus. The 12 tapestries showing Native American symbols and wildlife native to Indiana and are now placed directly over the Columbus murals. The Native American symbols belong to the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, who invited the religious congregation that founded Notre Dame to today’s...

Philadelphia's mayor said he is "disappointed" that a court ordered the city to remove a plywood box covering a statue of Christopher Columbus. A spokesperson for Jim Kenney said the office believes the statue should be removed from Marconi Plaza.... ...Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt handed down her ruling on Friday, telling the city that if it disagrees with the statue's "message" it can add a plaque..."More to the point, the City accepted the donation of the Columbus statue in 1876. It has a fiduciary duty to preserve that statue, which it designated an historic object in 2017," the judge wrote.