Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for October 10, 2022

Columbus is No. 1 on my list of flawed heroes, but still a HERO.

Nonetheless, he did discover the geographical relationship between Europe and the Caribbean islands.

The sea serpent on the map is a nice touch, Jimmy!

Some people always are in need of a whipping boy! Ciao, nah!

Columbus Day began as a way for Italian immigrants to improve their status as being thought of as “real” Americans. We should do away with this holiday now and correct harm from the past.

For example, Cherokee Nation was promised a representative in Congress since 1835. And leaders of several American Indian tribes have been asking for years for the University of Alabama to return nearly 6,000 human remains and artifacts from the school’s archaeological park and museum.

Obligatory: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day

Here be Monsters.

If you don’t want the angst, how about ditching the holiday? Then it just becomes a historical fact, instead of people celebrating the start of genocide.

Not all states celebrate Columbus Day, e.g. Florida and Michigan.

Tradition is not always a good thing. Why weasel out of it?

There’s a lot of money to be made out of that angst. Its not going away.

Give all the land back and send all the colonizers back to Europe.

As the people already living in the U.S. and Canada say, we didn’t need discovering, we were already living here.

Hero. For what? That name is bandied about for what reasons?

Well, all my life there were no Columbus Day holiday traditions. Finally, we have some. Griping about Columbus.

Man, the comments are funnier than the strip today!

“Discovered America” is one of these phrases. It’s technically true, depending how you define “discover” and “America.” But many – maybe most – kids get the wrong idea from it. It was used by the American Revolutionists who wanted a different origin than England.

But every year, tons of people correct something that was never said. Nobody ever claimed that Christopher Columbus was the first human in the contiguous 48 states. Nobody.

Also, when he was in the Caribbean, he thought he was in China. The man doesn’t deserve a holiday, especially when you consider that the Vikings were in North America 400 years earlier.

To the lower right: HERE THERE BE DRAGONS

Columbus was lost.

You’re really not obliged to play in the self-hate game.

Celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day!

Columbus Day is my brother’s birthday!

Such maps never do justice to the actual travel.

A lot of people love the holiday because they work at a place that honors it with an extra day off while others love the sales that happen to celebrate it.

“Columbus” Day is just another mistake by the marketing sector, whose enthusiasm was much greater than their attention. It was originally intended as a day to honor the Colobus monkeys of Africa. (/S?)

Columbus took three ships designed to sail the Mediterranean and took them out on an unknown ocean based on an idea. He had more stones than all his detractors put together.

Columbus is no hurrah.

Happy Columbus Day, one of the great explorers

Just another day that had its time in communities with Italian-American populations. Not even a day off from school or work anymore. Thinks change, time to move on.

Saul of Tarsus was the most flawed hero of all time.

This is one of those things where being first isn’t really the point. It’s the fact that Columbus’ voyages made it clear to ‘The Old World’ that there was a lot more world out there of which they had been unaware.

He must have gotten caught in the Gulf Stream…

Change the name to Explorers Day and be done with it. Despite the issues of the individuals and attitudes of the “Age of Exploration” and subsequent colonization," the act of exploring is something worth celebrating. Change the focus to the act of exploration and you can celebrate Neil Armstrong, Leif Erickson, and many other explorers.

Don’t ignore the history but, celebrate it none the less. Never cave to the woke mob.

Today is Indigenous Peoples Day.

Columbus isn’t a hero, IMVPO today should be Explorers Day. Failing that Indigenous Peoples Day

Actually Amerigo Vespucci “discovered” what would later be the U.S. Although the Vikings landed on Nova Scotia and parts of Canada. Still some debate whether they made it to the U.S.

But we have to have a Columbus Day, how else are we going to have week long Columbus Day sales.

While the Vikings were here first, Columbus, although his credit for finding the New World was usurped by Amerigo Vespucci, had a better press corps than the Vikings….

The original Pirate of the Caribbean!

At last the artist shows some sort of hint as to where they live. Judging by the the sending sparkle it is somewhere in a central Atlantic state. Looks like we got us a pair of rebels here folks. <];o)

It’s believed that Leif Erikson found North America approximately 500 years before Columbus’s discovery.

While all famous people are flawed, Columbus is more flawed than most and should not be honored. Still there should be an Italian-American day. And there should be an Indigenous Peoples day. Why should one replace the other?

He landed on both the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico – both part of the United States.

Wrong. Christopher Columbus landed in Trujillo, Honduras on August 14, 1502. Central America is the North American continent. And he was considered a genocidal monster even by his contemporaries. Teach his story but he is not worthy of the reverence.

He thought he reached Asia. A big reason for his voyage was to prove that the world was round. Or at least an egg-shape.

Columbus Day was a political sop from FDR to part of his constituency. At best, it’s a kind of Italian version of Cinco de Mayo, or St Pats Day. These types of holidays should not be elevated to official status. You can tell that Columbus Day is a made up holiday because it does not involve food or drink.

The part of Columbus’ story that amazes me is his getting the Spanish to fund his trip (promises of gold). The Italians (and others) thought he was nuts, not because they thought the world was flat, but because they knew it was round and MUCH bigger than he proposed (Eratosthenes ~240 BC had figured it out quite accurately). While his navigation to Asia was correct, given his errant supposition, Columbus was fortunate the Americas were in the way, or his entourage would have died of thirst and/or starvation.

Take up any grief with Columbus you might have with Italians.

I’ve suspected for years that the worst of the Columbus stories were fabricated by the USSR and planted during the Spanish Civil War.

All people are flawed. If we dwell on what hey could have done better, we would never acknowledge accomplishments. In todays society it is so much appropriate to point out the bad rather than good or heroic. I guess we love to put others down in order to make ourselves seem somewhat better. I guess that’s easier to accept our own mediocrity versus striving to do greater things. In other words, we’re just lazy.

Sorry, it’s been Indigenous People’s Day since before my first Potlatch and before my first Pow Wow.

Columbus Day was very important to me this year.

It was the day I realized that I did not know how to setup holidays which repeated on say, the second Monday of the month, on my new cell phone of several months as I had presumed that Columbus Day would show up on the phone automatically as many other holidays due. It was a reminder that when husband told me the new phone would work “exactly the same as your old one” he was terribly wrong. (Getting a new phone was not done done by choice – I had a 4G phone which somehow would no longer work when 3G was canceled and I hate the new phone.)