This Day in History: 1492-10-12

Christopher Columbus lands at San Salvador island in the Bahamas on this day in 1492. Although the event has long been celebrated as Columbus Day, and as an inspirational moment for Italian-Americans, we now also understand that the environmental impacts of European colonization of North America included epidemics of disease (smallpox, typhus, influenza, diptheria, and measles) that killed between 10 and 20 million people, or about 95% of the indigenous population of the Americas.