as history does so often... Oh, the tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. For 7 centuries the Iberian Peninsula was a bastion of religious freedom and high culture far above the rest of Europe... when it was under Islamic leadership. That changed when a Christian dynasty claimed the throne and Jews and Muslims either converted or went into exile. Many of the "converts" still practiced in secret but where tolerated because of their usefulness to the aristocracy. A muddled mess at best.

As for Christoforo, he was a scoundrel looking to get rich and when it turned out there were no spice trade to be found, he decided that slaves would do instead. Not a nice man, but that fact got whitewashed over the centuries.

Columbus was a native of Genoa, Italy, and over the years Italian Americans took up the cause of honoring his achievement. A mass lynching of Italian Americans in New Orleans in 1891 prompted U.S. President Benjamin Harrison to make the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival a national holiday in 1892, though he intended it to be a one-time celebration. In 1937 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed the day an annual holiday, in part because of the petition by the Knights of Columbus and to keep political support for his New Deal legislation much opposed by the upper class elitists who did not suffer much from the Great Depression.