Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 13, 2025 / 05:00 am
President Donald Trump renewed the focus of Columbus Day to be celebrated on the second Monday of October, reclaiming the explorer’s “extraordinary legacy of faith, courage, perseverance, and virtue,” according to the president’s proclamation .
Since 1971, the second Monday in October has been federally recognized as Columbus Day to commemorate Columbus’ discovery of the Americas in 1492, celebrate Italian-American heritage, and acknowledge the 1891 lynchings of 11 Italian Americans. In 2021, former President Joe Biden issued the first presidential proclamation of Indigenous Peoples’ Day to be observed on the same day, following backlash toward Columbus.
The “current hostility to him is ill informed,” Felipe Fernández-Armesto, profess