Before You Do THAT Lesson

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Columbus Day

Why Reconsider this Topic?

October 12 is known as Columbus Day. Discussions often include Columbus as the explorer who discovered North America. In addition to the indigenous peoples who were already living on the continent, it is now believed Vikings arrived before Columbus.
Christopher Columbus didn’t explore North America. He started his voyages in 1492, but landed in the Caribbean Islands. He explored the coasts of Central and South America, but didn’t get to North America.
Columbus did not set out to prove that the Earth is round. The shape of Earth was discovered hundreds of years earlier by Pythagoras and confirmed by Aristotle and Euclid in the 6th century (1,300 years before Columbus set sail) when they confirmed the Earth was indeed a sphere.
Christopher Columbus was known to commit atrocities toward the West Indies people and laid the groundwork for slavery in North America.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day recognizes that Native people are the first inhabitants of the Americas, including the lands that later became the United States of America. (Smithsonian Magazine, October 12, 2020)

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