Likely a naive question but I couldn’t find any comprehensive explanation.
For context: I was raised in Brazil where the year 1500 is mostly taught as the discovery date. Since that was a landing on current Brazilian territory, it always confused me why US history “co oped” 1492 and Columbus himself as part of its official history when that took place in present Caribbean.
Why isn’t Giovanni Caboto and 1497 more preeminent featured in general US culture for instance? Is this part of a broader conversation about the US adopting and dominating the terms America/American in general?
There are several relevant comments from u/EdHistory101 and /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov about the veneration of Columbus in the US in this topic:
It's worth reading the whole discussion for a variety of perspectives.