Cristoforo Colombo was born in 1451 in the port city of Genoa, in what is now Italy, and was named.
It's been said he chose to call himself Christopher Columbus because he liked what this name meant.
In Latin, Columbus means dove while Christopher (Christophoros) means Christ-bearer.
The real man, whom few today know much about, is an exemplary figure worthy of celebrating.
Revisionist historians have taken cheap shots at Columbus; taking a chapter out of Lenin (and other left-adherents) labeling him as imperialist.
Others blame Columbus for unfair treatment of the various indigenous people without considering that it wasn’t so much Columbus, but the mix of his Spanish machismo crew encountering ruthless indigenous tribes inclusive of cannibals and the warrior culture of the Aztecs.
Physical strength (even combativeness) were requirements for mere survival.
Columbus never set foot on or even saw any territory that later became part of the continental United States.
Columbus’s four expeditions to the New World between 1492 and 1504 were focused exclusively on Caribbean islands and territories which are now Latin America — Central America and South America.
His discovery of the New World opened the door to exploration and colonization of those new territories by Europeans who followed.
Columbus left voluminous writings, revealing what motivated him.
Born and raised in Genoa, Italy, he was the consummate self-made man who went to sea crewing on various ships at an early age.
An inspired Christian, Columbus was deeply affected by the militant face of Islam at the eastern end of the Mediterranean that created a blockade to Europe’s important trade with Asia.
It was then that he felt God’s conviction to find a western sea route, knowing it would have far-reaching benefits.
In doing so, he faced death.
When the Flemish-flagged ship on which he was crew was attacked and sunk off the coast of Portugal, he survived by sheer determination, finding some flotation debris and then kicking his way to shore some five miles away way.
For a seafarer with his ambition and vision, there was no better country on which to wash up than Portugal, a nation with the world’s most advanced tools of navigation and map-making.
It was there he learned about celestial navigation, which further confirmed his confidence to sail west "around" the world to India and the Spice Islands.
By his late thirties, his "calling" arrived.
In his diary he wrote, "It was the Lord who put into my mind, [and] I could feel his hand upon me . . . that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies."
Recognizing the cost of undertaking such a voyage required state sponsorship, Columbus spent the next six years traipsing across Europe seeking support from sovereignties of the leading maritime countries.
As a result, he was rejected and ridiculed.
Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain had turned down Columbus several times.
But because of his Christian faith, seafaring skills, and conviction about finding a westward passage, and his and brave willingness to lead an armed flotilla to rescue the Church of the Holy Sepulcher from Muslim hands in the eastern Mediterranean, they changed their minds
The year 1492 was momentous. In that year Christendom — still suffering from the loss of Constantinople to the Muslim Turks 40 years prior — drove Islam out of Spain and Europe with Isabella and Ferdinand playing the pivotal role.
They decided to support Christian expansion and finance the exploration and evangelistic expedition of Columbus.
In his first voyage of three ships — the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria — after being at sea for two months Columbus faced an anxious crew, who believed landfall should already have been made weeks before.
When they became mutinous and threatened to heave Columbus overboard if he did not agree to turn back, Columbus turned to God.
In his personal diary, Columbus recorded that God inspired him to make a deal with his Spanish crew and stake his life on it.
He asked for three more days, and if land was not sighted, the crew could do with him as they wished.
As providence would have it, in the early morning hours of the third day (Oct. 12), under moonlight and stars, the lookout from the ship Pinta, shouted out the siting of land.
Assuming it was an island to the east of India or China, Columbus had no idea that he was about to discover a new part of the world — the island outskirts of a massive continent —far from Asia.
Columbus’s perseverance and courage in this first transatlantic crossing, and three subsequent crossings, inspired successors from northern Europe who had been transformed by the Protestant Reformation with the ideas of equality and freedom.
They would set out to pursue a new life in that New World, ultimately establishing 13 different colonies in coastal North America.
Suffering injustice from Great Britain many years later, those colonists reluctantly banded together to fight for independence.
During the ensuing Revolutionary War, they lost more battles than they won.
But like the course of Columbus, George Washington’s persistence, courage and faith in God empowered an underequipped and underfunded colonial army to get to final victory and achieve independence.
That in turn enabled the founding of a unique, new nation, one based on the revolutionary idea that people’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness were inviolable because those rights came from God.
Not the state.
Let's keep Columbus Day as it remains foundational to the establishment of a new nation by those sharing the core beliefs and the qualities of character also exhibited by Columbus.
Columbus Day commemorates character, embodies freedom, and celebrates the uniqueness that is America!
Scott S. Powell, a member of the Committee on the Present Danger: China and senior fellow at Discovery Institute, is the author of "Rediscovering America," a new release in the history genre. You may reach him at scottp@discovery.org. Read Scott S. Powell's Reports — More Here.
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