10/12/2026
On this day in 1492, the three-ship expedition commanded by Christopher Columbus made landfall in the Bahamas, which Columbus mistook for the East Indies. For centuries the day has been remembered and celebrated throughout the Americas as the day Europeans first arrived in the Western hemisphere (a claim that is disputed).
Although Columbus was always honored in the United States as the “discoverer” of America, and the nation was often referred to as “Columbia” (as reflected in among other things the name given to the national capital), Columbus was particularly admired by Catholic and Italian Americans, who saw in his ethnicity and heritage an early connection between their culture and the history of the country. Long before “Columbus Day” became a national holiday in the United States, it was widely celebrated in Catholic and Italian American communities.
In the aftermath of the lynching of 11 Sicilian immigrants in New Orleans in 1891, Congress enacted a resolution calling for a national day of celebration in honor of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of America, and President Benjamin Harrison issued a Proclamation doing so. October 21, 1892 became the first official celebration of Columbus Day (although not yet called that) in America.
In the early 20th century, many Italian Americans, still often subject to religious and ethnic discrimination, recognized in Columbus a historical figure who could plug their heritage directly into mainstream American culture. In 1906 Italian Americans successfully lobbied Colorado to implement a Columbus Day holiday—making it the first state to do so. By 1911, thirteen more states had followed suit.
Meanwhile the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization, was diligently lobbying Congress for the creation of a national Columbus Day holiday. The organization, which was founded in 1882 and named itself after Columbus to emphasize that Catholics had always been integral to the American story, had considerable political influence, and in 1932 Congress enacted a law requiring the president to designate October 12 as “Columbus Day,” a day of observance and remembrance, but not an official national holiday.
In 1966, Mariano Lucca of Buffalo, New York, the son of Sicilian immigrants, founded the National Columbus Day Committee and launched a lobbying effort to make Columbus Day a national holiday. Two years later Congress passed a bill designating the second Monday in October as Columbus Day, a federal holiday, and President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law.
Today, October 12, is the original date on which Columbus Day was celebrated, in recognition of his expedition’s landfall in the Western Hemisphere on October 12, 1492.
The photo is from the 1892 Columbus Day parade in New York City.
