Columbus Day

Columbus Day is a national holiday in many countries of the Americas and elsewhere, and a federal holiday in the United States, which officially celebrates the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas. He went ashore at Guanahaní, an island in the Bahamas, on October 12, 1492 [OS]. He built La Navidad on the northwestern coast of the island of Hispaniola in late December 1492, the first European fort in the Americas. After the destruction of the fort by the indigenous Taíno people, Columbus established La Isabela on the central-northern coast of the island in late December 1493, the first stable European settlement in the Americas.