Columbus Day in the United States is an annual celebration dedicated to the historic arrival of Christopher Columbus in America. Since 1971, when Columbus Day became an official federal holiday, it has been celebrated on the second Monday of October (in 2024, it is on October 14)
On this day, festive church services, parades, and official ceremonies are held. However, many other states, such as Colorado, Alaska, Vermont, South Dakota, Minnesota, and others, do not recognize the holiday, instead celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day on this date. This day is also used as an opportunity to discuss what happened after Columbus’ arrival: the European colonization of America and its negative impact on the indigenous people.
Despite his controversial legacy, the story of Christopher Columbus is diverse and filled with remarkable events. In honor of the holiday, let’s recall some of the most interesting facts about the famous explorer that you may have missed in school.
1. Columbus was not the first European to cross the Atlantic
It is believed that the first was the Norse Viking Leif Erikson, who landed in what is now Newfoundland almost five hundred years before Columbus set sail. Some historians even claim that before Erikson, the Atlantic was crossed by Irish saint Brendan and other Celtic peoples.
2. He never set foot in North America
The navigator made three voyages to the West, but he never set foot on the mainland of North America. Many people imagine Columbus planting a flag in the lower half of Florida, but in reality, he only explored a small part of the Caribbean, including the Bahamas, Cuba, and Jamaica, as well as parts of Central America.
3. Christopher Columbus is not his real name
The future explorer was born in Genoa, and in Italian, he is known as Cristoforo Colombo, long thought to be his birth name, and in Spanish as Cristóbal Colón. But he was also referred to, both by himself and others, as Christuál, Cristovam, Christofferus de Colombo, and even Xpoual de Colón. There is even a theory that he took the name from a pirate named Colombo.
4. Niña and Pinta were not the real names of his ships
In 15th-century Spain, ships were traditionally named after saints. However, sailors, who were fond of their vessels, gave them nicknames. La Niña was likely the nickname of a ship called Santa Clara, derived from the owner’s name, Juan Niño. The real name of Pinta is unknown. Santa Maria, though it bore its official name, was referred to by sailors as La Gallega, after the province of Galicia where it was built.
5. He thought he had reached Asia until the end of his life
While today Columbus is known as the discoverer of the New World, he never thought of himself that way. Instead, he believed he had reached Asia, so he should be remembered not as a discoverer but as a master planner.
6. He didn’t set out to prove the Earth was round
Despite myths popularized by writers, the expedition was not intended to prove that the Earth was not flat. Pythagoras proposed that it was round as early as the 6th century B.C., and Aristotle confirmed his theory a couple of centuries later. So, by the late Middle Ages, educated people were aware of this fact.
7. The Santa Maria was shipwrecked during the first expedition
On December 25, 1492, a cabin boy steering the flagship ran it aground on a reef. This happened on the northern coast of Hispaniola (Haiti). With the help of the locals, the crew managed to salvage the cannons, supplies, and valuable cargo from the ship. A fort, named La Navidad (Christmas), was built from the wreckage on Haiti. Columbus returned to Spain aboard the small Niña, leaving almost 40 crew members on the island. When he returned to the settlement in the fall of 1493, none of the crew were found alive.
8. He was promised 10% of all income from the New World
Now that’s quite a deal. Somehow, Christopher convinced King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella that he should receive 10% of all income from the lands he discovered and, in addition, be appointed governor. However, he was such a poor administrator that he was arrested, and the contract was revoked. Columbus’ heirs sued over this until 1790.
9. He made four voyages to the New World
Columbus is best known for his 1492 expedition, but over the next ten years, he returned to the Americas three more times. During this time, he visited islands in the Caribbean Sea, South, and Central America.
10. His remains traveled as much as he did during his lifetime
Even after his death, Columbus continued to cross the Atlantic. After his death in 1506, he was buried in Valladolid, Spain, and later transferred to Seville. At the request of his daughter-in-law, both Columbus’ remains and those of his son Diego were transported across the Atlantic to Hispaniola and buried in the Santo Domingo Cathedral. When the French took over the island in 1795, the Spaniards exhumed the remains, believed to belong to the explorer, and moved them to Cuba before finally returning them to Seville after the Spanish-American War in 1898. However, in 1877, a box of human remains with the explorer’s name was discovered in the Santo Domingo Cathedral. Did the Spaniards exhume the wrong body? A DNA test in 2006 found evidence that at least some of the remains in Seville belonged to Columbus. The Dominican Republic has not allowed testing of the other remains. So, it’s possible that Columbus’ remains are both in the New World and the Old World.
