Who Was Christopher Columbus?

Who was Christopher Columbus? You can see the cleanup right behind me. These are workers with the city's Department of Public Works. They are pressure washing this statue of Christopher Columbus that sits at the base of the Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill. They're washing off that red paint that covered much of the statue. New video of demonstrators cheering as they brought down a Christopher Columbus statue in Baltimore. The statue had stood in the city's Little Italy neighborhood and was then dumped into the Baltimore Inner Harbor. A mayor's spokesperson has said that the protection of the city's statues would not be a priority for police. Statues of great historical figures like Christopher Columbus are being torn down across America. Here are some facts about Columbus that remind us why his statue should remain. Like most educated people in 1492, Columbus knew the earth was round, but badly miscalculated its size. Estimating 2,400 miles between Spain and Asia, less than one-fourth the actual distance. For centuries, Europe traded with Asia through the overland Silk Road, but the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453 disrupted the route. Columbus expected tons of gold from his easier ocean crossing, hoping to finance a new crusade to liberate Jerusalem. Columbus drifted among nationalities, marrying a Portuguese noblewoman, fathering a child with a Castilian mistress, seeking English sponsorship for his explorations before sailing for the Spanish queen. His native tongue, Ligurian, dominant dialect of his hometown, Genoa, where his name was registered Christofa Carumbo. After four transatlantic voyages, Columbus died in 1506. Unshakably convinced, he had reached the Asian mainland, never acknowledging he had stumbled onto two unknown continents. He never established long-term settlements, nor explored the American mainland, so it's absurd to blame Columbus for the devastation of native populations, or to credit him with the rise of new world civilization. Columbus Day became a U.S. holiday on the 400th anniversary of 1492, and in response to the lynching of 11 Italian immigrants by a New Orleans mob.