why is Columbus day still in a national holiday?

It has been long since proven that Columbus did not discover America. He landed in the Caribbean islands where he tortured and murdered over 3 million people. He also enslaved them for gold. Columbus was a horrible human being and the fact that we still celebrate him speaks volumes about the moral fabric of our nation.

man just enjoy the day off.

I agree it's a ludicrous holiday, but I'm enjoying my day off!

I guess I am out of the loop....I did not know he murdered 3 million people....

Any patriotic Holiday wrangles the nerves of the libs. They have a hard time with a place called America.

What's patriotic about celebrating a thieving genocidal maniac?..maybe we should celebrate by " discovering" someone's house then forcing them to move.

That's a lie I have no problem with the holiday.

I think its common knowledge by now that Columbus didn't discover America.

Well, according to bugs bunny it was 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue....now let us reason together....what historical context is trust worthy....other than the bible...history is written by the victors and as far as American history goes....one spoonful at a time it has been crammed down our collective throats! LIKE MOST HAVE SAID....WHO GIVES A FLIP...JUST ENJOY THE DAY OFF!

I give a flip because I find it morally repugnant to celebrate this evil man. Might as well be Adolf Hitler day.

To be honest, I'm really not much of an expert on Columbus.

Do we have some documentation on how many people he murdered etc.?
Preferably from primary sources?

I'm not a Columbus apologist; I have no dog in this race.
But I like to see some actual evidence when people start throwing huge numbers around.

Well, the man did create the autobahn and brought Germany out of the poverty that the U.S. left it in....

lol nah but seriously, I fully agree with you I'm just kind of apathetic about it cause it doesn't really change anything for anyone. Anything "Merica" related leaves a bad taste in my mouth as it is, much less its holidays.

How about we just stop all of the Holidays and label them "days off of work" days.......and then end capitalism and introduce a political anarchic society.

I din't think anyone cares that its columbus day, most people just like not having to go into work on a monday. Seriously, youre like a whiny millenial on tumblr complaining about this stuff.

Im sorta on the fence with this one. I dunno about the killing of millions of people, have never seen or heard this anywhere. But at the same time, it is an odd day, like who really even celebrates Columbus? But at the same time, we do have major cities named after him, so Im not so sure that you will get away with saying hes a villain. And also, many of the people we celebrate from history have a history of violence and bloodshed /somewhere/ in their lifetime. I mean the US itself, though a totally normal thing for many many nations, and I am not condemning the US and telling everyone they must hate it, does have a history of removing native people from the land in order to claim it as their own.

If we look into the evils of Columbus day, shouldnt we look into the evils of all our national holidays? We can change the meaning of a day, instead of celebrating Columbus, why not celebrate the discovery of the New World in general?

New World day! What a name!

We dont have the day off where I work

I did a bit of cursory poking around.
What I found from primary sources, easily, was plenty of documentation that he was a pretty nasty guy.
What I did not find, readily, were first-hand accounts of the vast numbers of people that he's supposedly responsible for murdering.

It is extremely clear that he committed terrific atrocities.
That seems perfectly, and easily substantiated.
I think it would take a lot more digging though, to find primary accounts for the vast genocidal numbers he's supposedly responsible for.

I'm not defending him.
He may actually be responsible for killing 3 million people.
It's just that when I see HUGE numbers thrown around, I like to see evidence for those numbers.

We have to remember, every time a historical figure is either deified of vilified, there are CURRENT POLITICAL MOVEMENTS which gain some variety of ENORMOUS BENEFIT. Therefore, we should always be a bit cautious spreading information we haven't checked.

Well...go out side and work or something..as for me...I did not even know it was a holi-day until I seen a sign on a door of a store...I myself don't pay much attention to any holi-day....

No, you are an exception. Dude is a case in point.

Both are dead, God is their judge, get over your self righteous self. lol