Columbus Day

Columbus Day is a national holiday in many countries of the Americas and elsewhere which officially celebrates the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas on October 12, 1492 (Julian Calendar; it would have been October 21, 1492, on the Gregorian Proleptic Calendar, which extends the Gregorian Calendar to dates prior to its adoption in 1582). Christopher Columbus first landed in what is now Luperón, a small town on the north coast of the Dominican Republic side of the island of Hispaniola. The name of Hipañola was given to the island to honor the queen Isabel of Spain. Christopher Columbus was an Italian-Genoa explorer on behalf of Spain, who set sail from "Puerto de Palos, Spain to across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a faster route to the Far East only to land at the New World.