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Columbus Day: New World
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Columbus Day, marked this year on October 8, is an official holiday for most U.S. federal government workers, many public schools, state and local agencies and the U.S. bond market. It recalls the October 12, 1492, landing of Columbus in the Americas on his search for a naval route to India, an event that spawned an era of European interest in the New World.
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Columbus Day commemorates Columbus' famed expedition to the West, in which he hoped to find a naval route to India. Instead, he found an entire continent that was mostly unknown to Europe, Africa, and Asia at the time. While other Europeans had sporadically visited the Americas earlier, and there are varied theories of even earlier contact by East Asians, Phoenicians, and others, Columbus' expedition triggered the great wave of European interest in the New World. Unlike the earlier visitors, Columbus aggressively popularized his discoveries and arranged for return voyages.
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The traditional Columbus Day in the United States includes a parade down New York's Fifth Avenue. Parades and pageantry are often featured in smaller towns and cities. In recent years, the holiday has been rejected by many people who view it as a celebration of conquest and genocide. In its place, Indigenous Peoples Day is celebrated.
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NEW YORK, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Due to the Columbus Day holiday, Westwood One (NYSE: WON) announced today that the company has rescheduled the teleconference call to originally take place on Monday, October 8, 2007. The teleconference call to discuss the recently announced binding agreements (subject to shareholder ratification) with CBS Radio, Inc. will now occur on Tuesday, October 9, 2007 at 9:30 AM. The call is open to the general public.
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Over the following decades, the Knights of Columbus, an international Roman Catholic fraternal benefit society, lobbied state legislatures to declare October 12 a legal holiday. Colorado was the first state to do so on April 1, 1907. New York declared Columbus Day a holiday in 1909 and on October 12, 1909, New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes led a parade that included the crews of two Italian ships, several Italian-American societies, and legions of the Knights of Columbus. Since 1971 Columbus Day, designated as the second Monday in October, has been celebrated as a federal holiday. In many locations across the country Americans parade in commemoration of the day.
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Today, though the president annually proclaims Columbus Day, it is one of the most hotly debated days off. Many question why Columbus is credited with discovering an already inhabited land. Others believe he was not the first explorer to arrive in the New World. Some blame the explorer for leaving what they believe was a legacy of genocide and slavery. Numerous sites on the World Wide Web address this issue.
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