Columbus Day Reading Comprehension Lesson

Reading Passage

Columbus Day

Columbus Day is a federal holiday in the United States, observed on the second Monday of October, commemorating Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas on October 12, 1492. The holiday has been celebrated in various forms since the 18th century and became a federal holiday in 1937. In recent decades, Columbus Day has become one of the most contested holidays in the United States, as Americans have grappled with a fuller accounting of Columbus’s legacy and the devastating impact of European colonization on the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Several states and cities have replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, while others continue to celebrate Columbus Day, sometimes with particular meaning for Italian-American communities.

Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer sailing under the Spanish flag when he made his famous voyage of 1492. Born in Genoa (in present-day Italy) around 1451, Columbus became an experienced sailor and navigator. He proposed that he could reach Asia by sailing west across the Atlantic — a theory that was geographically sound (the earth is round) but badly misjudged the size of the ocean and the existence of two continents in between. After years of rejection by the Portuguese court, Columbus persuaded Spain’s Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand to fund his expedition. He departed from Palos, Spain, on August 3, 1492, with three ships — the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María — and a crew of about 90 men.

After 70 days at sea, Columbus’s fleet sighted land on October 12, 1492 — an island in the present-day Bahamas that Columbus named San Salvador (though its exact identity is debated). Columbus believed he had reached the East Indies (the islands of Southeast Asia) and called the inhabitants ‘Indians’ — a misnomer that persisted for centuries. He explored Cuba and Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and Dominican Republic) before returning to Spain, where he was received as a hero and made Admiral of the Ocean Sea. Columbus made three more voyages to the Americas between 1493 and 1504, exploring more of the Caribbean, Central America, and the northeastern coast of South America — but he died in 1506 still believing he had found a route to Asia, never understanding that he had reached continents previously unknown to Europeans.

The consequences of Columbus’s voyages for the indigenous peoples of the Americas were catastrophic. Columbus himself enslaved indigenous people on his voyages and instituted a system in Hispaniola that forced them to mine gold — those who failed to meet quotas had their hands cut off. The Spanish colonization that followed his voyages brought devastating diseases (smallpox, measles, influenza) against which indigenous peoples had no immunity, killing an estimated 50–90% of the pre-Columbian population of the Americas — tens of millions of people — within a century. Columbus’s arrival initiated what scholars call the Columbian Exchange — the transfer of plants, animals, diseases, and peoples between the Old and New Worlds — which transformed both hemispheres permanently.

The celebration of Columbus Day has a complex history in the United States. Italian-American communities, who faced significant discrimination and nativist hostility in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, embraced Columbus as an Italian hero and a symbol of Italian-American contributions to the country. The first official Columbus Day celebration was proclaimed by President Benjamin Harrison in 1892, on the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s landing. The holiday gained federal status in 1937, partly due to lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization. Today, the debate over Columbus Day reflects broader conversations about how the United States remembers and honors its history. Supporters see it as a celebration of exploration and Italian-American heritage; critics argue that honoring Columbus implicitly celebrates the beginning of the colonization and genocide of indigenous peoples. Both perspectives reflect genuine and deeply held values about history, identity, and justice.

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