Columbus believed he sailed his crew to the East Indies, but Europeans realized years later that his voyages landed them in the New World.

[4][5] The first Columbus Day celebration took place on October 12, 1792, when the Columbian Order of New York, better known as Tammany Hall, held an event to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the historic landing.

[7] The day was first enshrined as a legal holiday in the United States through the lobbying of Angelo Noce, a first-generation American, in Denver.

[12][13] The proclamation was part of a wider effort after the lynching incident to placate Italian Americans and ease diplomatic tensions with Italy.

These rituals took themes such as citizenship boundaries, the importance of loyalty to the nation, and the celebration of social progress, included among them was the Pledge of Allegiance by Francis Bellamy.

This proclamation did not lead to the modern federal holiday; it was similar to language regarding Thomas Jefferson's birthday and Gold Star Mothers Day.

In 1941, some 1,881 Italian Americans were interned and lost rights as "enemy aliens" because of a widely held belief that they would remain loyal to Italy, an Axis power, during World War II.

[21] These efforts were successful and legislation to create Columbus Day as a federal holiday was signed by President Lyndon Johnson on June 28, 1968, to be effective beginning in 1971.

Actual observance varies in different parts of the United States, ranging from large-scale parades and events to complete nonobservance.

[29] San Francisco claims the nation's oldest continuously existing celebration with the Italian-American community's annual Columbus Day Parade, which was established by Nicola Larco in 1868,[30] while New York City boasts the largest, with over 35,000 marchers and one million viewers around 2010.

The list of cities that have followed suit as of 2018 includes Austin, Boise, Cincinnati, Denver, Los Angeles, Mankato, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Seattle, Saint Paul, Phoenix, Tacoma, and "dozens of others".

[citation needed] In the United States, Día de la Raza has served as a time of mobilization for panethnic Latino activists, particularly since the 1960s.

[14] On October 10, 1992, Pope John Paul II visited the Dominican Republic to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the Americas and the arrival of Christianity in the "New World".

The name was changed to "Day of Respect of Cultural Diversity" by a presidential decree in 2010 issued by President Cristina Kirchner.

[72] The statue of Columbus was removed from its original position near the Casa Rosada and replaced by one of Juana Azurduy, a patriot and leader in the struggle for independence who had indigenous ancestors.

[citation needed] Colombia, whose name originated from Columbus himself, celebrates El día de la Raza y de la Hispanidad (meaning "Day of the Race and Hispanicity"), and is taken as an opportunity to celebrate the encounter of "the two worlds" and to reflect on the richness that the racial diversity has brought to the culture.

[75] On October 12, 2004, a crowd of progovernment activists toppled a statue of Christopher Columbus by Rafael de la Cova in Caracas.

Presently, since October 12, 2021, the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador abolished the previous national Fiesta de la Raza holiday, " [to] vindicate the origin and identity of indigenous peoples who were forgotten by previous governments, who for decades celebrated Race Day as a positive event and who never adopted mechanisms to enhance human rights".

On December 18, 2020, by decree of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the name of October 12 was changed to "Day of the Pluricultural Nation".

In 1937, Cuban President Federico Laredo Brú (1936–1940) spoke to the nation and countries of America in Cuba on October 12 commemorating Christopher Columbus's voyage to the New World.

He ended his speech with venerating Christopher Columbus's efforts to colonize and establish settlements along the new front and the pride of one's nation.

The exploration Escuadrilla Binacional Pro Faro de Colón was inspired by Columbus's journey across the North Atlantic Ocean to America.

On December 15, after visiting a majority of South America, their flight to the Peruvian capital Lima was hampered by an unexpected sandstorm.

With minimal visibility and poor navigation, Niña, La Pinta, and Santa Maria crashed into high mountains, while Colon, unaware of the other aircraft, flew over the storm and safely made it to Panama City.

[89][90] Since the 18th century, many Italian communities in the Americas have observed the Discovery of the New World as a celebration of their heritage, since Columbus was born in Republic of Genoa, nowadays Italy.

The first celebration of the Discovery of the Américas by Columbus in Spain was as early as 1642 when the city of Zaragoza designated the Virgen del Pilar (Our Lady of the Pillar) as symbol of the Hispanidad (Hispanicity) on the date of the Spanish expedition's arrival to the New World.

The Spanish government suggested other nations (Hispanic American countries, Italy and the United States of America) to join the celebration, which was followed with enthusiasm by them, with a few exceptions.

[101] In the summer of 1990, 350 representatives from American Indian groups from all over the hemisphere met in Quito, Ecuador, at the first Intercontinental Gathering of Indigenous People in the Americas, to mobilize against the 500th anniversary (quin-centennial) celebration of Columbus Day planned for 1992.

In time for the 2004 observation of the day, the final volume of a compendium of Columbus-era documents was published by the University of California, Los Angeles' Medieval and Renaissance Center.

He disputes the idea that the Spaniards' arrival was beneficial towards the Indians by quoting History of the Indies by the Catholic priest Bartolomé de las Casas, who observed the region where Columbus was governor.