Today is Columbus Day, the federal holiday that "celebrates" the "accomplishments" of Christopher Columbus, the Italian explorer who served Spain. Many have taken to Twitter to either complain about having to work, or celebrate the fact that they don't, and through either complaining or celebrating, they work in some facts about Columbus.
Before reveling in the ignorance of Twitter's denizens, a few words from Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States:
"So, Columbus and his successors were not coming into an empty wilderness, but into a world which in some places was as densely populated as Europe itself, where the culture was complex, where human relations were more egalitarian than in Europe, and where the relations among men, women, children, and nature were more beautifully worked out than perhaps any place in the world."
He came into this "new" world and enacted policies that led inexorably to one thing: genocide.
Enjoy Columbus Day.