Fun Fact: Columbus Day as a yearly National Holiday was lobbied for as late as 1966 in New York. Before then it was merely an observance.

Particularly on the 300th & 400th anneversary of the first landing.

It was signed into legislation as a federal holiday in 1968 and was first observed as a national holiday in 1971.

During the height of the Mafia's Power.

Makes you think that this is all politics either way and italians just want a holiday like st. Patricks day.

They should have picked somebody better, like Dean Martin.