For more than a decade of Columbus Days I've referenced this interesting post by James C. Bennett on some surprising complexities regarding the holiday. Here's the summary paragraph from my post:
Caboto? Cabot? Yes, it's the same explorer. John Cabot, often identified as the "English" navigator, was really an Italian. In 1497 he financed his "discovery" of North America - not just a few islands as Columbus did in 1492 - with English money. Leave it to those crafty English to Anglicize him and create mass confusion among school children and armchair authorities for centuries to come.
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| Cabot in his Venetian Robes, Guistino Menescardi, 1762 |
Putting aside Bennett's Calvinist Puritan "depravity of man" talk, readers know full-well my opinion on the superlatives and "firsts" regarding the exploration, occupation, and settlement of the planet. Whether it's Leif Erikson, Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, Kennewick Man or whomever, we should know by now it's the politics that matters. Given that, Power Line's John Hinderaker offers his perspective on this day. Glenn Reynold follows up with his opinion on Instapundit, including a recommednation that readers explore Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, a superb biography by the renowned writer and maritime historian, Samuel Eliot Morison.
And so we are left with a national holiday celebrating an explorer who "discovered America" but never set foot on the North American continent. Enough said. My you have an enjoyable Columbus Day holiday and thank Bjarni Herjolfsson for staying out to sea.
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