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In October 2021, as the annual Columbus Day holiday approached, many people took to social media to decry the Italian explorer, noting his involvement in the slave and sex trade, and to rebuff the notion that Columbus had discovered America. The idea that Columbus discovered America is one of the most common misconceptions about the explorer. In fact, ever since the first Columbus Day holidays were celebrated in the 1800s (the very first Columbus Day was likely celebrated in 1792, though celebration of the holiday wasn't widespread until the late 1800s), with school children singing their renditions of My Country, 'Tis of Thee and other patriotic activities, people have been pushing back against the false claim that Columbus was responsible for the European discovery of the United States. In December 1892, a few months after U.S. President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation to commemorate the 400th Anniversary of the Discovery of America by Columbus, an article was published in Michigan's Owosso Times entitled The Columbus Canard that debunked the claim that Columbus discovered North America. 02 Dec 1892, Fri Owosso Times (Owosso, Michigan) Newspapers.com The article concludes: The Columbus Canard was not the first time that an author attempted to correct the record. A few years prior, The New York Times published an article (republished below in The Boston Globe) that started with anecdote about a broker who adamantly placed a losing bet on Columbus' discovery of the North American continent: 28 Apr 1878, Sun The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts) Newspapers.com The article reads in part: As noted in the centuries-old articles above, Columbus did not discover mainland North America. He made four voyages across the Atlantic, and while he saw Central America, the South American coast, and some Caribbean islands, including Puerto Rico, during his voyage, he was unaware of the vast land mass to the north of his explorations that would later become the United States of America. From The Washington Post: The Royal Museum of Greenwich adds: There are a few other problems with stating that Columbus discovered North America. For one, North America was already inhabited by the time Columbus didn't arrive. This is one of the driving forces behind the push to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day. Second, another European explorer, the Norse explorer Leif Erikson, arrived in North America (Erikson landed in Vinland which is modern-day Newfoundland) about 500 years before Columbus first set sail.
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