It's Columbus Day, and as usually happens I've been hearing everybody talk about how terrible Christopher Columbus was. All I ever learned about him was that he was a guy who sailed across the Atlantic in 1492, and discovered the Americas. I'm genuinely interested in learning more about this, but whenever I ask someone what he did that was horrible, I never get any direct answers. Can anyone help shed some light on the issue for me, or point me toward where I might be able to read more about it? Is he just blamed for European Colonialism in the Americas after his discovery, or was he actually a genocidal maniac?