Today is Columbus Day observed across the United States.

Not even a partial government shutdown can stop the day set aside to honor the 15th Century explorer.

I am sure most of us recall from the story how Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and “discovered” the new world.

Of course there were already people living in the new world when Columbus arrived and scholars often debate the timing of the arrival of vikings in terms of who really arrived from Europe first, but for our purposes here let us just agree that it was old C.C.

Now, in addition to learning about the year of the arrival of Columbus students are also taught from an early age the names of his three ships that accomplished the journey.

These ships were of course the Ni