There are LOTS of famous and successful people who have great PR but are total and complete scum and no you don’t have to go back hundreds of years to find them.
Recent history and current events are Full of pretty faces that are as shallow and superficial as the Raquel Welch poster in ‘Shawshank Redemption’ (…and they’re just as hollow, jagged, and empty on the inside too).
Get them off the $20? You’re lucky if you can ever get them off the dial, off of the marquee, or off of the ballot.
And if you want further proof of his scumhood just look at the wretched hive of scum and ignorance that’s called a university in that city.
Well, in Columbus’ defense he did pave the way to make Montezuma stop eating so many of his neighbors.
And not only that, there appears to be a marked broad preference for the cultures that were subsequently established, based on people clawing their way in versus bolting for the door of Europeanized nations…
Plus HVAC and the Internet, which the natives never would have gotten around to inventing.
Sorry, and I know this is completely off topic, but here goes.
[nitpick] Rita Hayworth. [/nitpick]
Oh, come on. If you’re going to nitpick, do ti right.
It was Linda Ronstadt.
Umm, got real dusty in this room just now. Pardon me while I… oh, hell, {{sob}} Thanks for linking to that.
Being Native American, I just gotta weigh in here and say :
Referring to the poster of Raquel Welch on the wall, covering Andy’s completed escape tunnel, done over the course of less than 20 years and probably several posters, starting with Rita Hayworth. “Fuzzy britches” refers to Raquel’s fur bikini from One Million Years B.C.
Yeah, but, eventually they’d find out Indigenous People did bad stuff too, and then have to change it to International Hedgehog Day or something.
In Soviet Australasia, Natives Massacre You.
What’s the quotes for? And if anything, las Casas was less famous that Sepulvada, who was pretty justly famous for his translations of Aristotle, his anti-Lutheran works, his polemic against Henry VIII, his appointment as official historian and chaplain to Charles V and tutor to Phillip II, his sometimes contentious correspondence with Erasmus, etc. If anybody deserves the title of “humanist scholar”, it’s Sepulvada. Even his arguments in the Valloilidad debates were humanist arguments. A lot of his pro-Indian slavery arguments were Aristotelian and logical. If anything, las Casas’s arguments were less humanist and more explicitly Christian, and las Casas rejected the classical tradition, in the arguments, linking Alexander the Great and the Romans to the Turks, condemning them as tyrants and pagans, and not the model of a Christian king.
Because his voyage started the European expansion that led to all of us living here today. He’s significant historically, despite being a horrible person.
Granted, I think all the focus on the man is stupid. It’s the voyage that is important. But making it “Indigenous People’s Day” misses the point. I’m not saying such a day shouldn’t exist, and perhaps become a national holiday instead of Columbus Day, but it does not make sense as a rename of the holiday.
The Inca society was brutally regimented. It was caste oriented, very rigidly hierarchical, and had zero room for upward mobility. If you were born a farmer, you were a farmer for life, and so were your kids. There were far fewer freedoms than even in ancient Egypt. Rome was a hotbed of liberty in comparison.
I’d be ok with celebrating the first English North American colony - Jamestown - though John Smith was a tough cookie. John Cabot, who explored North America in 1497, might be another candidate. Or heck, why not have a Gutenberg day?
Maybe we should even rename our continent and country after Vespucci.
Oh, wait a minute . . .
Sure, like Spiny Norman is all innocent…
Columbus was scum, and I’m all in favour of not celebrating any holidays in his honour. I’d be a bit aghast of South Africa still celebrated Van Riebeeck Day, or Kruger Day or We Killed A Bunch Of Zulus Because Jesus Totally Loves Whites Best Day (That … may not be the actual name of the holiday)
If we do, I’m going to insist that we spell his name right – Giovanni Caboto or Zuan Chabotto. The guy was Italian, after all.
His son, the explorer Sebastian, was really Caboto, too. Even taking care of Buffy and Jody with that British accent couldn’t disguise that fact.
Speaking of which, why do we insist on “Columbus” instead of “Colon”?
Well, I would not be surprised if any number of countries did have a thinly disguised or not “we killed a bunch of [others] because [our god] totally loves [us] best” day… humans are kind of like that from what I’ve observed.
Well, sure … doesn’t make it right or appropriate in this day and age. And as the South African examples show, it’s not impossible to get rid of that shit. You just need complete regime change 
Actually, using that variant would probably get across the OP’s thesis quite handily.
The fashion back then was to Latinate names…so Columbus rather than Columbo, Calvinus rather than the French Cauvin, Copenicus rather than the Polish Kopernik, etc.