Happy Columbus Day!

Just a couple of things to remember about celebrating Columbus Day:

1. 1. Christopher Columbus was Italian, not Spanish. (Born in Geneoa, Italy, Columbus' expedition was sponsored by Queen Isabella and Kind Ferdinand II of Spain)
2. 2. Chris was searching for a new trade route to the Indies, not trying to prove that the world was flat-everyone already knew that the world was round by 1492.
3. 3. Amerigo (the Americas are named after this lad) Vespucci was a cartographer, not an explorer, but he did say the Americas were a full continent. Chris called Bull-Sh_crap until his dying day claiming the land for Spain as the West Indies.
4. 4. Columbus was the first European since the Viking Leif Ericsson (no relation to Sony Ericcson) to travel to the new world. *Special note: Columbus was the first European to spend spring-break in the Bahamas!
5. When Chris Columbus landed in Hispaniola (modern day Dominican Republic and Haiti) the Tainos people welcomed him as an early Christmas present, but when he returned to establish the first Spanish settlement in the New World, he put their asses to work, and the toll of slavery and European diseases dwindled the Tainos' peoples numbers down from an estimated 1 million people to a little more than 500 people within 40 years! ** Special Note: Seeing the Tainos' drop like flies the Spaniards opted to a hardy worker, instituting captive slaves from Africa as early as 1503, bartered by "Ramos the Jew" (kind of a lackluster surname, but that what history has left us).
6. Columbus captained the flagship of his fleet, the Santa Maria, brothers Vicente Yanez Pinzon (Nina) and Martin a Lonzo Pinzon (Pinta) captained the other two vessels.
7. In 1865, Catholics wanted their own response to the Masons, established a fraternal-organization/secret-society with Chris' namesake called the Knights of Columbus. Thus, bypassing the differences between the Italian and Irish Catholics in the United States as well as sticking it to the Protestant establishment by laying claim to the Italian Catholic guy who started it all!
8. The Knights of Columbus are established on every continent except Antartica. The Grand Knight, aka, the Grand Pooh-bah, wears a golden anchor to show hommage to old C-Squared. Former President John F. Kennedy, Baseball legend George "the Babe" Ruth, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, legendary Packers coach Vince Lombardi and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito are all past or current members of the K of C.