Q: When is a holiday not a holiday?

A: When it's Columbus Day, of course.

Today is the day when we celebrate the discovery of America by Christopher Colombus.
Except it's not, because we don't really celbrate Columbus Day anymore. Why? Because Christopher Colombus, whose Spanish masters knew him as Cristobal Colon, didn't discover America for one. You see, syphilitic Genoese men don't count as discoverers when they come across a hemisphere populated by (possibly) hundreds of millions of people. Including Central Mexico, then the most densely populated urban region on Earth. Secondly, the truth behind the symbolism of Columbus day is a bit nasty. Let's try a little excercise. I will type a little piece about Colombus day like you might have seen in your middle school text books, but with more honest substitute words in parentheses.

In 1492, Spanish explorer (Italian mercenary) Christopher Colombus set out to discover America (establish trade routes with India). He did this on behalf of King Ferdinand (who had no real power) and Queen Isabella (who was the brains of the opperation) who had recently united Spain (who had recently joined forces and strong armed other Christian princes into expelling the Muslim and Jewish population of the country in a bloody genocidal purge, they then consolidated power). Colombus's voyage proved that the world was round (which was a widely acknowledged fact at the time even among common people, having been conclusively demonstrated by the Ancient Greeks). The Discovery (stumbling-upon) of America (The Caribbean Islands) inaugurated the Age of Discovery (Age of Slavery, Exploitation, and Genocide) unprecedented in human history (well, the Mongols were probably just as bad). Today we comemmorate this great acheivement (spectacular case of fortuitous failure) with Colombus Day (Native American Genocide Day).

You might say I'm a revionist. You'd be right. That's what you do when a story is inaccurate and hateful, you revise it.

Why don't we all go read 1491 : New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. It compiles most of the latest stuff on the Pre-Colombian Americas from archaeology, anthropology, geology, geography, etc. And it does it in a readible way--trust me, I've read some of this stuff in the original academic context, readible is key.
Hell, buy it for me, off of my wish list.