Columbus Day

This is a national holiday in the United States, officially celebrating the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas in 1492. It would have been 21st October in the Julian Calendar, but is 12th October in the Gregorian calendar, however is celebrated in the USA on the second Monday of October. Columbus was an Italian explorer on behalf of Spain who was sent across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a faster route to the Far East, only to land at the New World after three months. Columbus and his crew’s arrival to the New World initiated the Columbian Exchange which introduced the transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations and technology between the New and Old World. Celebration of this day is recorded as early as 1792, when the Tammany Society in New York City and the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston celebrated the 300th anniversary of the day. For the 400th anniversary in 1892, a lynching in New Orleans where a mob had murdered 11 italian immigrants, President Benjamin Harrison declared Columbus Day as an one-time national celebration. Many Italian-Americans observe the day as a celebration of their heritage, and their first celebration was in 1866. The day was lobbied to be a legal holiday, and it was made a statutory holiday in 1907, and then a federal holiday in 1968. Since 1971 the holiday has been marked on the second Monday in October. Annual observances vary in different parts of the countries, from large-scale parades in San Francisco to non-observance at all.