Columbus Day

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Monday is the day that people are supposed to celebrate the arrival of the man who officially found the new world. Of course lots of Scandinavians had visited earlier, and it is easy to forget that there were already people living in America prior to the arrival of the Europeans.
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It is a good opportunity to educate young people about how great America is, and also how bad the Europeans treated the people who were already living in North America.
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And it is great time to remember that the British government got very angry at the Chinese when they were asked to stop selling opium in China; and that the first ship filled with slaves for sale here coming from Africa was a Dutch ship.
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For sure, the USA was founded on fairly good principles. Of course it is easy to forget that our constitution says that both women and black folks are too stupid to vote. But eventually, after a great deal of very strong opposition, the paperwork was changed and we amended that bit.
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Now we just need to change people's attitudes.
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In Barcelona, Spain that have a really nice statue at the end of Las Ramblas celebrating Christopher Columbus.
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Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day
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