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In fourteen hundred ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

As every school child knows, Christopher Columbus was the Italian navigator who sailed with Spanish ships to a land inhabited by native Americans only to mistakenly call them Indians because he thought he had landed in India!

Despite the confusion, the discovery changed the course of history.

Of many celebrations that still mark the discovery of America, the one in NYC is by far the largest, grandest and most popular, welcoming over 1 million spectators annually..

This year, the annual Columbus Day Parade in NYC takes place on Monday, October 8, 2012 beginning at 11:45 AM — as huge lunchtime crowds come out to cheer along the parade route up Fifth Avenue from 44th Street north to 79th Street.

What's closed on Columbus Day? Despite it being a normal workday for many Americans, Columbus Day is an official federal government holiday with the post office and banks closing in honor of the day (although Wall St. stock markets still stay open as usual.)

Today, the American Indian is given equal time in many areas where Indigenous Peoples Day is celebrated.

Who really discovered America? Join the fray as we celebrate both traditional and new ways to celebrate Columbus Day with stories and history lessons, arts and crafts ideas, clip art and interactive exhibits.

More about Columbus Day around the Web:

Columbus Day - From the Holiday Zone, with fun arts and crafts ideas, songs and poems, with links to sites that celebrate Columbus Day with clip art and other crafts. Sites that celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day are given equal time, as well.

The Pinta, Nina, and Santa Maria - Corpus Christi Texas is the home of the replicas of these ships - donated to the US on the 500th Anniversary of their first arrival here.

Christopher Columbus and the Spanish Empire - The University of Calgary does a good job of presenting the facts in The European Voyages of Exploration.

The Columbus Navigation Homepage - Columbus and his voyages are the focus here. Methods of navigation, who really discovered America, interaction with native cultures and other questions about the tales of Columbus.

also see in Art & Culture -> Native American Art | Native American Month