Happy Columbus Day – or maybe Sad Columbus Day. It’s ironic in America that a holiday started to help combat anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant (especially anti-WOPs) feelings is becoming viewed as an unseemly celebration of a brutal conquest. It’s confusing when the meaning of something from my childhood changes. For those of you who know more about the “conquest” interpretation, please consider that those who view Columbus Day as a positive holiday may not be bigots – they may just be showing their age. All of us can enjoy this article from 2002:
“Before it became the New World, the Western Hemisphere was vastly more populous and sophisticated than has been thought—an altogether more salubrious place to live at the time than, say, Europe. New evidence of both the extent of the population and its agricultural advancement leads to a remarkable conjecture: the Amazon rain forest may be largely a human artifact.”
Kate's Science - Real and Fantastic 