What are your thoughts on Columbus Day?

Today is Columbus Day. Federal and state offices are closed here in Springfield, IL.

"Public education may be crumbling in many of our cities, but if American schoolchildren are still taught history at all, they probably do know that on this day, five hundred and seventeen years ago, Christopher Columbus (they will not know that this Hispanicized Genoese sailor, born Christoffa Corombo, knew himself as Cristóbal Colón) made landfall in the Western hemisphere. He promptly set about the task of bringing the gifts of Spanish law, religion, language and culture to the new realm he claimed in the name of the Spanish sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella. To put it another way, he began the enslavement and brutal exploitation of the indigenous Taino people."

By Jesse Larner