I’m sorry, but I can’t take it anymore. I just read about the‪#‎ColumbusWasAHero‬ hashtag. A hero? First off, he never set foot in the Continental US, but in the Caribbean. Hell, Leif Eriksson beat beat him by almost 500 years.

He didn’t set out to prove the world was round. The Greeks suggested the world was round in 5BC and it was accepted knowledge in Europe at the time he sailed west.

He was a slaver who decimated the local indigenous tribes. His treatment was so brutal the Spanish government had him arrested for his treatment of the local people during his time as Governor of the territory. Mutilation and torture were common practices by Columbus.

Yet we celebrate this man’s life because he “discovered” America, a country that had been “discovered” first by the people already living here. It would be like my former French neighbors walking up to my house and planting the French flag, saying, “We have discovered this land for France.” Silly, right? But yet we have Columbus Day.

End of rant.

Read more of the bio by B. Myint on Biography.com.