The Forgotten 12 Days of Christmas

Upon reading the title of this post, you might have thought of the Christmas carol, "Twelve Days of Christmas". That carol is a strange one for a few reasons, but one thing that confuses most who hear it is the whole idea that Christmas is 12 days. In secular society, Christmas is certainly celebrated on December 24th and 25th, and in the broader sense from Thanksgiving to Christmas Day (or even beginning on Halloween!) But to us Christians who celebrate Christmas as Christmas, and particularly the Christians who have liturgical calendars, we know that Christmas begins on Christmas Eve and extends for some time afterward. Given that knowledge, the 12th day of Christmas would be January 5th.

As a Catholic Christian, the end date of the Christmas season varies. The Christmas season ends at the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which is always the third Sunday after Christmas Day. That means any date between January 9 and January 15. That's also after the 12th day of Christmas, so the Catholic reckoning doesn't quite match.

There was an older Catholic end date to Christmas, and a fixed one at that. The date I speak of is Candlemas, February 2. In that same liturgical calendar, however, there were the "pre-Lent" Sundays or weeks marking 70, 60, and 50 days before Easter, which have Latin names I'm not going to try to remember how to spell. Those days often overlapped with the days leading up to Candlemas, so really the Christmas season would last until it was 70 days before Easter. However, if you look at a pre-Vatican II calendar, another important detail appears: the fixed date of January 6th for the Feast of the Epiphany.

In the new Catholic liturgical calendar, the Feast of the Epiphany is the second Sunday after Christmas Day. However, the old liturgical calendar always had January 6th as the Feast of the Epiphany. Orthodox Christians also have the Feast of the Epiphany fixed as January 6th. Therefore, on January 6th, you might have an epiphany (pun intended) that the 12 days of Christmas are now over, and this Feast of the Epiphany begins the next season of the liturgical year. As a matter of fact, the Sundays after Epiphany are labelled as such on the old liturgical calendar, rather than Sundays after Christmas.

I hope that now you can see how we got the 12 days of Christmas. It takes a traditional Catholic Christian, Orthodox Christian, or anyone else who knows much about the history of Christian feasts to understand! Whether you celebrate Christmas until January 6th, February 2nd, or some date in between, I wish you a merry one.

Chile and Argentina: The New Spanish-Speaking Empires

By the close of the wars of independence in South America in the 1820s, Spain never did colonize most of Patagonia, the southmost quarter or so of South America. Sure, there was a territorial claim there, and ships from many countries went through the Strait of Magellan, but just like the North American west coast north of California, little was done in the way of settlement. Therefore, apart from the indigenous nations who lived there, most of Patagonia and all of Tierra del Fuego was unclaimed land when Chile and Argentina became independent:

Chile and the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata (Argentina) in 1825 soon after independence. Screenshot from EmperorTigerstar's "The History of South America: Every Year".

In the decades to come, both Chile and Argentina would claim and settle lands stretching all the way to Tierra del Fuego and beyond. If you've read some of my other blog posts, you'll remember that I define an empire as any country that has expanded beyond its original borders. Therefore, both Chile and Argentina would count as empires. Like some other, more powerful empires, Chile and Argentina mainly expanded in one direction. For Russia it was east, and for the United States it was west, but Chile and Argentina expanded south.

Chilean and Argentine expansion happened at a slow pace at first, but little by little the two countries expanded southward until they embarked on their two biggest conquests: Chile's War of the Pacific and Argentina's Conquest of the Desert.

Another screenshot from EmperorTigerstar's video, showing the status of Chile and Argentina before the Pacific War began in 1879.

The War of the Pacific began in 1879 and lasted until 1884. Chile expanded northward rather than southward. What was originally a dispute over a Bolivian tax on Chilean mining companies became a conquest of Bolivia's coastline and some of Peru's. Chile also invaded Peru at other places on the coast, including Lima itself. By the war's end, Bolivia was a landlocked country and Peru was humiliated. Chile did not just expand north during this time, however, as it had to respond to Argentina's rapid expansion southward.

At the same time when the United States was busy fighting wars against indigenous nations such as the Nez Perce and Apache, Argentina got busy fighting wars against indigenous nations such as the Mapuche. Argentina's Conquest of the Desert has resemblance to the "Indian Wars" of North America in other ways, too. Argentine generals employed ruthless tactics in the war just as American generals often did, and the Conquest of the Desert is often criticized as a genocide. Another comparison is that the newly conquered lands were opened for European settlement, and many European immigrants came. In fact, Argentina today has about the same proportion of people descended from Europeans as the United States. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Andes, Chile was steadily conquering lands to the south as well. To avoid direct conflict between Chile and Argentina as they raced towards Tierra del Fuego, the two countries agreed in 1881 to set their border mostly along the Andes Mountains (as it was for the northern part of their border already), except Chile would have the whole Strait of Magellan; Chile already founded Punta Arenas on its shores decades earlier. This is essentially the border today.

In the 1920s through 1940s, Argentina and Chile began to look across the ocean southward (and southeastward for Argentina). The United Kingdom had by then claimed a lot of territory in that direction. It already had the Falkland Islands and South Georgia Island, as well as the South Sandwich Islands and South Shetland Islands more recently. Argentina claimed South Georgia Island in 1927 and the South Sandwich Islands in 1938. As for Chile, it decided to claim the part of Antarctica closest to it in 1940 after Norway claimed a different part the previous year.

Chilean president Gabrial Gonzalez Videla visited Antarctica in the 1940s. Chile, Argentina, and the U.K. all claim the Antarctic Peninsula within their "sectors" which end at the South Pole.

Chilean and then Argentine claims on Antarctica marked a new chapter in not just their history but the whole history of the Spanish-speaking world, for there is no conclusive evidence that Spain ever saw lands south of Tierra del Fuego. Antarctica, and more specifically the South Pole, would also mark the conclusion of Chile's expansion southward, at least in terms of claims. But if Chile stretches its coastline all the way to Alaska, as the joke goes, then Chile has a lot of expansion it could do to the north.

For Argentina, its claim on Antarctica is naturally tied up with its claims on the neighboring British islands. Even in Antarctica, Argentine claims overlapped with British ones. Regardless, Argentina started asserting its own claim to the part of Antarctica closest to South America in the 1940s, which overlaps not just with the British claim but the Chilean one as well. In the decades that followed, Argentina started to contemplate taking the neighboring British islands by force. After all, the United Kingdom was reeling from World War II, and it was also granting most of its colonies independence. Argentina was waiting for a decent chance to strike. Meanwhile, Argentina was also establishing research stations in Antarctica (as were Chile and the U.K.) The first person born in Antarctica, Emilio Palma (in 1978), is an Argentine citizen.

For whatever reason, 1982 is the year Argentina chose to try capturing the Falkland Islands and the other British islands nearby. If Argentina was a great power and the United Kingdom was not, maybe Argentina could have won, but the Falklands War went about as one would expect. After invading the Falkland Islands and South Georgia Island, Argentina was able to briefly occupy both territories. However, once the British Empire sent reinforcements from England and Gibraltar, the Argentine invasion force was soon defeated. I guess Argentina didn't understand that Britannia still ruled the waves, even if the Falkland Islands are much closer to Argentina than England. It took just over two months before the war was over. 

After the end of the Falklands War, little has changed as far as Chilean and Argentine expansion goes. Argentina is in a tough spot for taking the Falkland Islands, not just because the United Kingdom is still a great power with a formidable navy, but also because over 99% of Falklanders voted to stay as a British territory in 2013. (A democratic referendum is rarely that one-sided!) Meanwhile, both Chile and Argentina have established new Antarctic research stations every now and then, with Chile operating a total of 12 right now and Argentina operating 14. All of those are within Chile's and Argentina's claims, but those claims have been on hold since 1959 because of the Antarctic Treaty. Even so, Chile and Argentina both have one research station with civilians living alongside researchers. By comparison, the United Kingdom has 4 research stations (all in its own claim) and no civilian settlements of any kind, so while the United Kingdom has the upper hand in other areas near Argentina, it seems that Argentina and Chile both have a stronger presence in Antarctica.

What does the future hold for these two empires? For now, it seems that not much will change. I'm not aware of any serious independence movements within Argentina or Chile that would make either country lose territory, and it seems also unlikely that Chile or Argentina will gain new territory until the United Kingdom is no longer a great power and until Chile's or Argentina's claim on Antarctica is recognized. As with Patagonia, assuming both Argentina and Chile are allowed to enforce their Antarctic claims, the two countries might have to split their claims to avoid conflict. Maybe they could choose a meridian, or maybe they'll take either side of a mountain range like in Patagonia. What we do know is that the Antarctic Treaty can be revised in 2048, so if it is revised, that could bring some new developments. Either way, it looks like Antarctica is the new frontier that both countries have chosen in their southward expansion.

The Four Stages of the Decline of the Spanish Empire

As some of you know, I've had an interest in the history of the Spanish Empire for years. In studying this history, there is an interesting pattern to the decline of the Spanish Empire that isn't found in the declines of other empires. Some empires, such as Britain and France, still have overseas colonies with their declines mostly being just attributed to the independence of colonies, given one at a time in full (in France's case) or very gradually (in Britain's case, as seen in commonwealth realms). Spain's empire, on the other hand, was different. It seems that Spain lost groups of colonies at a time to different causes. There also appear to be four different stages of these losses, four different blows to the Spanish Empire. I will present each of them in this post.

Map of the Spanish Empire with different colors corresponding mostly to the four stages of Spain's territorial losses. Courtesy of the user "Trasamundo" on Wikimedia Commons.

Stage 1: The War of the Spanish Succession

The year was 1714. While Spain still held a vast empire including much of the Americas from California to Chile, as well as other overseas colonies, the Treaty of Utrecht that ended the War of the Spanish Succession doomed the Spanish Empire's colonies in Europe itself. Previously, Spain had much land in Europe as part of its Habsburg monarchy. This included the Low Countries and about half of Italy, as well as a little bit of France. The War of the Spanish Succession was fought over who should succeed the previous King of Spain, but I think one could also say that this was a war about the Spanish succession, that is, whether Spain would successfully hold its colonies! In the Treaty of Utrecht, Spain failed to even defend its homeland, because two pieces of it were given to Britain. One was Gibraltar, which remains British to this day, and the other was Menorca, which Spain was able to take back by the end of the century. As for Spain's Habsburg lands, these were transferred to the Austrian Empire (though the Netherlands previously gained independence from Spain decades earlier).

Stage 2: The Napoleonic Wars and their aftermath

In 1801, while Spain was just starting to make good use of Louisiana (which was given to Spain by France in the Seven Years' War), the new leader of France had other ideas. In the Treaty of Aranjuez, France offered the Spanish crown some territories in Italy in exchange for Louisiana, which was still more or less culturally French. If France could have Louisiana back, then maybe they could launch invasions of Haiti from there, which France was trying to keep from gaining independence. Spain agreed to the treaty, though ironically, the residents of Louisiana didn't know they were French citizens again until after the United States bought Louisiana as the reconquest of Haiti failed.

Although Spain was a loyal ally of Napoleon at first, Napoleon thought it would be a good idea to make his brother become the King of Spain. The Peninsular War began as the Spanish mainland fought to depose the unwanted French pretender to the throne. As the Spanish mainland was distracted by that war, nearly all the colonies in the Americas decided to declare independence. These efforts were led most famously by Simon Bolivar and Miguel Hidalgo, in Venezuela and Mexico, starting in 1810. Soon enough, nearly all the colonies in the Americas were fighting wars of independence. Although Spain's own war of independence from the Bonapartes succeeded, the wars of independence in the Americas were so far along that Spain could not hope to win in those colonies after spending so much effort on defeating Napoleon. In the middle of these conflicts in 1819, Spain decided to give all its North American colonies east of Texas to the United States and also defined the Spanish-American border that would soon be the Mexican-American border until Texas broke away from Mexico. By 1825, Spain had no land left on the American landmass, though it did have Cuba and Puerto Rico (yet the Dominican Republic, also a Caribbean colony, achieved independence with all the mainland colonies in the Americas). Speaking of Cuba and Puerto Rico...

Stage 3: The Spanish-American War

Although Spain held onto Cuba, the Philippines, and other colonies for decades after losing all its American ones, the colonies I just mentioned had a yearning for independence, too. By the mid-1890s, Cuba and the Philippines were fully rebelling against Spanish rule. The United States decided to get involved. One motive may have been aid to the rebels, but another motive for some Americans was certainly to gain colonies for themselves. In just a few months, the ever-strengthening United States defeated the ever-weakening Spanish Empire and occupied the Philippines, Guam, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Cuba was awarded independence within four years, whereas Philippine independence would have to wait for 48 years. Guam and Puerto Rico, on the other hand, remain U.S. territories to this day. Spain had other archipelagoes in the Spanish East Indies not occupied by the United States, namely today's Palau, Micronesia, and Northern Mariana Islands. Since Spain had little use for these remaining small islands, Spain sold these to Germany, another emerging great power, in 1899. Therefore, by the turn of the 20th century, the only Spanish colonies left were in Africa.

Stage 4: Decolonization under Franco

The semi-fascist regime of Francisco Franco from 1939 to his death in late 1975 was somewhat ironic. Franco and his supporters hoped to restore some colonies Spain lost before or create new ones. On the other hand, Franco himself knew he could not expand the Spanish Empire unless he had lots of help from the Axis Powers during World War II, and even then, he could lose. The only new colony Spain got was Tangier, Morocco, which was only a wartime occupation by a neutral country. Another ironic thing about the Franco regime was that his support for the Spanish monarchy didn't produce a new monarch in Spain until after he died. Anyway, between World War II and the death of Franco, the vast majority of African countries gained independence. Spain didn't give up all its African colonies at once, but rather within a 30-year period, which is still within a single generation. First, Tangier was given its pre-war status as an international zone in 1945. Then, the Spanish and French protectorates were merged to form an independent Morocco in 1956. Spanish Guinea, Spain's only sub-Saharan African colony, was granted independence in 1968. The following year, Spain gave up its colony of Ifni on the Moroccan coast to be annexed to the rest of Morocco. Finally, only days before Franco died, Spain gave up its territory of Spanish Sahara but left that former colony's future uncertain. To this day, "Western Sahara" is a large piece of the desert disputed between Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, a mostly unrecognized country.

Will there be a Stage 5?

When Spain gave up its protectorate in northern Morocco, it kept two cities on the Moroccan coast: Ceuta and Melilla. Despite Moroccan demands, Spain has kept these cities and has no intention of giving them to Morocco. Spain also has a tiny piece of the Moroccan coast in addition to these two cities, as well as a handful of small islands very close to the Moroccan coast. 

A map I found in Wikimedia Commons illustrating the small pieces of the Moroccan coast still under Spanish rule (author unknown).

Most might not even think of these as colonies, since they are also close to the Spanish mainland. Nonetheless, Spain only acquired these after the completion of the Reconquista and Columbus' first voyage in 1492, events which could be considered the birth of Spain and its empire. Even the Canary Islands were already Spanish when the Reconquista ended. Since I consider a colony to be any piece of land a country gained from outside that country's original boundaries, I would say the Spanish Empire is still alive (albeit barely) until Spain no longer has control of any land on the African coast and no longer has control of Navarre, which is a former Basque kingdom conquered by Spain at the same time as the Aztecs were. However, given the ability of Spain to easily resist Moroccan claims over Ceuta and Melilla so far, and its ability to suppress the Basque independence movement, I think it will be decades or even centuries before these very last colonies are taken away.

The Compromise Russia and Ukraine Have to Make

Last week, I heard of a 28-point proposal that the Trump administration presented to Ukraine and Russia to end their brutal war. I decided to take a look at it. Here's a link to it if you want to read it too. It's got a lot of interesting things in it. The way it has 28 points is interesting by itself, because this is exactly twice the points of Woodrow Wilson's "14 Points" you may have heard about in history class, which was the president's plan for ending World War I. That plan was followed to some extent, though it was only a part of ending that war. Does it therefore take twice as many points to end the Russo-Ukrainian War as World War I? Anyway, a lot of the 28-point proposal looks quite reasonable to me. I'd like to focus on two points in particular. I'm predicting some will disagree with my opinion of the proposal and the points I'm about to mention, but that's okay - we can talk about it if you'd like.

21. Territories:

a. Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk to be recognized De-Facto as Russian, including by the United States.

b. Kherson and Zaporizhzhia to be frozen at the contact line, which would mean a De-Facto recognition at the contact line.

c. Russia to give up other agreed upon territories they control outside of the five regions

d. Ukrainian forces will withdraw from the part of Donetsk region that they currently control, and this withdrawal area will be considered a neutral demilitarized buffer zone, internationally recognized as territory belonging to the Russian Federation. Russian forces will not enter this demilitarized zone.

Here we have the section talking about territorial changes. I'm not sure what a "de facto" recognition would mean, as opposed to full recognition. Nonetheless, ever since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, it's been clear to me that Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk have been culturally Russian for a long time. Crimea was only given to Ukraine in 1954 (back then, it was a transfer from one Soviet republic to another). Ukrainians have never been the majority there, while (at least in the past few decades) Russians have. The method of annexation was certainly questionable, but Crimea does fit in more with Russia than Ukraine apart from geography. Similarly, Donetsk and Luhansk have had Russian-speaking majorities for decades, and those two oblasts were where pro-Russian separatists ignited the very next chapter of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.

Percent in each oblast speaking Russian, as of a 2001 census. Sevastopol, Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk are the ones where Russian is the majority. Image by Alex Tora.

I slightly disagree with the next provision freezing the front line in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts, but there is a substantial Russian population in Zaporizhzhia oblast, and only some would be given to Russia anyway. It also provides a land connection between Donetsk and Crimea for the Russian part of Ukraine. Ukraine would still have plenty of Black Sea coast, including the major port of Odesa. There are also points protecting both Russian and Ukrainian commerce on the Black Sea in the peace proposal.

As for the other two provisions from point 21, they both sound reasonable. Russian troops should withdraw from Ukrainian-majority areas that they are in now. The part about a DMZ in the Donetsk oblast is interesting, but I'm not sure what the reason behind it is, as in I'm not sure why that's better than either Ukraine keeping what it has there or Russia taking all of that oblast (which would be "de facto" recognized anyway).

Besides the argument from redrawing borders to correspond more with ethnic boundaries, there is also an argument to be made from a different country's history. During World War II, Finland was fighting a war to keep its independence from Russia. Between the World Wars, the Soviet Union was busy trying to get everything Russia had before World War I back into Russian (or rather Soviet) control. The Soviets succeeded in many areas, but failed in Poland (the first time, that is, in 1920). Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were also left, as was Finland. The Soviet Union got its way with Poland, the Baltic countries, and Moldova over the course of the war. As for Finland, there were two different Soviet invasions: the Winter War and the Continuation War. Finland, like Ukraine today, was technically on its own. As in Ukraine, the invasions only got so far before becoming stalemates, and yet another comparison is that Finland, like Ukraine, later launched a counter-invasion. The result in the end was that Finland lost somewhat small portions of its land to the Soviet Union, while most of Finland kept its independence. Interestingly, Finland stayed neutral in the Cold War afterward, joining neither NATO nor the Warsaw Pact.

Finland had to give up some land in World War II but still won the fight to keep its independence. Does a similar result await Ukraine?

Moving on:

7. Ukraine agrees to enshrine in its constitution that it will not join NATO, and NATO agrees to pass in its bylaws not to accept Ukraine at any point in the future.

While this might be a hard-to-swallow pill for Ukraine, there is a geopolitical comparison to be made for this too, not just in Finland. Most people know about how Germany was divided into four occupation zones and then two (West and East Germany) after World War II. Fewer people know that the same initially happened with Austria. Vienna, like Berlin, was divided into four zones too. However, unlike Germany, Austria managed to reunite only a few years into the Cold War under the condition that Austria would join neither NATO nor the Warsaw Pact. To this day, Austrian law prohibits Austria from joining any military alliance. Therefore, throughout the Cold War, Austria was a neutral country between NATO and Warsaw Pact members. Similarly, Ukraine could become a neutral country between NATO members and Russia today. Did I just imply that we're in a new Cold War? Yes, but that's a topic for a different blog post.

With all that said, I think the 28-point peace proposal is the most reasonable I've seen so far for ending the Russo-Ukrainian War. I wouldn't have a much better proposal myself. Therefore, I hope this proposal works, and I hope you can see why it would be a good idea.

American Coinage vs. Inflation

Last week, the U.S. Mint minted its last pennies for circulation. In my opinion, this was long overdue, but I'm glad the Mint is at long last taking action to get rid of practically useless coinage. I remember having conversations with one of my coworkers last year who agrees with me that the penny and even the nickel should no longer be produced. In my opinion, the lowest denomination of coins should be dimes.

This isn't the first time a denomination of coin has been made obsolete. Back in the day - and I mean WAY back - there were half cents. They were some of the first coins the U.S. Mint ever produced, and they stopped getting minted in 1857. The funny thing about half cents is that not only are they valuable today collecting-wise, but they were also more valuable back then than the penny, nickel, or even dime today. Using an inflation calculator, a half cent back then would be worth about 16 cents today! In terms of composition and size, the half cent was made of pure copper and just a little smaller than a quarter. Since 1965, quarters have been made of copper too with a nickel plating. Since 1982, pennies have been made of copper-plated zinc rather than almost pure copper, and even with that change, the metal of a penny is now worth three times as much as the penny itself. The half cent isn't the only obsolete denomination of coin. There used to be two- and three-cent coins, as well, which were somewhat impractical, and twenty-cent coins, which never really caught on because there were quarters.

The half cent, ironically almost as valuable as a quarter today.

Think about it: when was the last time you were able to pay for anything for less than a nickel, or a quarter for that matter? The least expensive thing I can think of ever buying would be a handful of small candies from a dispenser for a quarter. I've never paid for anything cheaper. To pay for anything with pennies anymore, you need a lot of them. "Five-and-ten" stores are now dollar stores, and even dollar stores have lots of things you have to use more than one dollar for. I'd say that pennies and nickels should have stopped being minted before the end of the 20th century, since they could no longer pay for anything by using only one of them.

Although I mentioned the quarter is the lowest denomination coin I've used to pay for anything, I say the dime should be the lowest denomination minted because it would be more convenient numerically. For example, if something is worth $1.61, we can round it to $1.6 rather than rounding it up or down to the nearest quarter ($1.5, 1.75, 1 1/2, or 1 3/4). That would make prices have no more than one digit after the decimal point. It would also make the sizes of coins match up with the value: dime, quarter, and half dollar. Dollar coins, on the other hand, are currently between quarters and half dollars in size, though they and half dollars aren't used much anyway. Then again, if we bring back Eisenhower dollars, the size and value match up very well.

Given the long history of inflation that has happened since the penny and half cent were introduced, I think we've been overdue to stop minting pennies for a long time, and I say the nickel should be next. Lincoln and Jefferson are still honored on $5 and $2 bills. Perhaps I'll see the day when prices have only one digit after a decimal point!

A Whole Month Gone...

The shutdown still sucks.

We're now over a month into the federal government shutdown that started on October 1st, which means the whole month of October was taken up by the shutdown. I still got to work (though many of my coworkers did not), though it was often tricky to work on projects that would take up a whole workday, so I often did half-days. Either way, I miss my regular line of work, and I didn't think the shutdown would last THIS long. Has Congress gone insane?

The votes on the CR have been almost the exact same time after time, the only differences being some absent senators at times. In a previous post, I wondered if Democrats would vote for the CR just in time before the Trump administration would lay off federal workers. Well, the layoffs have already happened - weeks ago! Now, no one seems to have a good guess as to what will finally make the Senate agree on a clean CR. Would it be the first missed paycheck? Nope. Would it be right after the "No Kings" rallies? Nope. But certainly, senators would care enough to pass a CR before November 1st, when SNAP benefits would run out! Still, nope!

The day before the shutdown started, a visitor I talked to predicted the shutdown would be even longer than the last one (which was the longest). I hope he's wrong, but he could be right. Either way, this is certainly an uncertain time for the federal workforce and many others. Who knows when the shutdown will finally end, but since it's anyone's guess, I at least hope that it will end sometime this week so that we can have a bit of normalcy again, and I really hope that this isn't followed by another shutdown on November 21st, when the "new" CR would expire.

Columbus Day and Alternative Holidays

At this time of year in this country, and especially during the 21st century, there always seems to be a debate over what and who we should celebrate. Is it Columbus Day or Indigenous People's Day? What are we celebrating if it is Columbus Day? This debate can be demonstrated by how, as of 2025, there's a variety of names for the day or varying degrees by which it is celebrated. In my experience living in Minnesota and both Dakotas, each has its different customs. Growing up in Minnesota, it was Columbus Day, but now it's Indigenous Peoples Day, and the Columbus statue near the Minnesota State Capitol was removed. In North Dakota, Columbus Day is still observed as such. In South Dakota, it's been Native American Day since 1990.

My photo from 2012 of the Columbus statue which used to stand near the Minnesota State Capitol before vandals tore it down in 2020.

Before I get into the debate itself, it's interesting to see how each centennial of the landing of Columbus in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492 - generally considered the "Discovery of the Americas" or at least the beginning of a permanent link between America and Europe - has been marked. The author of the book Columbus and the Crisis of the West does the same. Beginning with 1592, it seems that there was little celebration. Columbus was controversial even in his lifetime, being removed as governor of the Indies by the Spanish Crown. 1692 also seems to have gone generally without notice. There may have been other factors involved in why the Spanish Empire itself didn't really celebrate Columbus Day. Perhaps, as an officially Catholic culture, Spain and its colonies weren't interested in celebrating a worldly event. Holidays were still Holy-days, and I can't think of a Spanish holiday from the 16th or 17th centuries that was not a religious one.

The United States, however, did things differently. As a new country straight out of the Enlightenment and also influenced by Protestantism, religious holidays had less weight, and secular holidays became more appealing. As the first country in America to gain independence from its mother country overseas, the United States took advantage of this fact by not only calling itself "America" but also informally "Columbia" in honor of the man and event that ultimately led to the establishment of an American country with European ideas. Therefore, by the time 1792 came around, a society in New York City celebrated the 300th anniversary of Columbus' landing. In 1892, there was even more excitement amid the American industrial optimism common in American culture at the time. Columbus' landing 400 years before was seen as a triumph of human bravery, technology, and even science. It was around this time that people still believed the myth of Columbus proving that the Earth is round to the scoffing Catholic elite of Spain. Anyway, as part of that association of Columbus with industrial optimism, the World's Columbian Exposition happened in Chicago the following year, 1893. By this point and afterward, it seems that the world noticed and often followed the U.S. treatment of Columbus. Now that Spain's American colonies were all independent republics, various countries in the Americas reflected on the significance of Columbus in a positive, neutral, or negative light. Spain itself, which was slowly secularizing, started to celebrate Columbus Day as the "Day of the Race", a recognition of the spread of Spanish culture and its union with Native American cultures into what Americans often call Hispanics or Latinos. Italy, too, recognizing Columbus as a native of that country, has celebrated Columbus, but not as much as the Italian Americans, who have chosen that day to celebrate their own community and were a large factor in making Columbus Day become a federal holiday.

The commemorative Half Dollar produced in 1892/3 for the 400th anniversary of Columbus' landing

By 1992, American culture was very different. Unlike in 1892, when Indian reservations and Native American rights could be taken away on a whim, the culture of the United States, having went through the civil rights movement three or so decades earlier, had equality in mind and started to question the celebration of Columbus' landing. Americans started to have more interest in the Native Americans' perspective and started to see Columbus in a less than positive way. Howard Zinn, for example, portrayed Christopher Columbus as a villain in his 1980 book, People's History of the United States. Nevertheless, the 500th anniversary of Columbus' landing was generally celebrated. The U.S. Mint created three different commemorative coins for the occasion. My favorite has a design split into two halves: the Santa Maria on the left (the ship of 1492) and the Space Shuttle on the right (the "ship" of 1992). Also, Pope St. John Paul II marked the occasion by visiting the Dominican Republic, one of the first countries visited by Columbus, but more so celebrated it as the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Christian evangelization of the Americas.

The reverse of the commemorative dollar coin made for the 500th anniversary of Columbus' landing

From 1992 onward, the debate over Columbus Day has been a major talking point in American culture wars. Some, mostly conservatives, still celebrate Columbus Day for the first voyage of Columbus. Others, mostly liberals, celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day for the people who have lived in the Americas for countless millennia. I say there are good reasons to celebrate both. I'll start with the reasons why Columbus Day is good to celebrate, and then the reasons why Indigenous Peoples' Day is good to celebrate.

Columbus Day commemorates a very significant event in world history. Although Columbus didn't actually set foot on the American mainland on October 12, 1492, he did on a later voyage, and in any case, his first voyage set of explorations that would permanently unite the Americas on one side and Europe and Africa on the other. This brought about both good and bad things. Sure, Columbus may have had a mind for exploitation, and European diseases and conquests severely damaged the native population, but it also introduced horses, metallurgy, guns, and many other things the native tribes of the interior of North America especially wanted to have. The Europeans, meanwhile, were introduced to some very good crops such as cacao, tomatoes, squash, green beans, and maize (which became so widely grown that an old word for grain, "corn", began to refer to just maize). There is much debate over the character of Columbus himself, but I would say that Columbus Day should be celebrated for the permanent link across the ocean if not for the man who led the voyage that made that happen.

The spread of guns and horses across North America. Although Europeans brought them first, Native Americans were eager to gain the two through intertribal trade or spoils of war.

Indigenous Peoples' Day honors the history and many cultures of the people who first discovered America many millennia ago and have been there ever since. The celebration of these cultures and what they have given the world can also be celebrated as part of that holiday. It is also fitting to celebrate it on the same day others celebrate Columbus Day since this was when Native Americans were introduced to Europeans. For all we know, the first people ever to see America may have done so on an October 12th deep in prehistory.

In conclusion, I will celebrate October 12 or the second Monday in October as Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples' Day to commemorate the exchange of cultures that happened on October 12, 1492 and onward. Since I respect both versions of the holiday, I think that whoever belittles either Native Americans or Columbus and other Europeans is being unreasonable, because a good look at the history of the Americas reveals lots of good and bad results from that fateful event - which is not surprising since any aspect of history as broad as American history is going to have a mix of good and bad events resulting from the actions of good and bad people.