People are either oblivious to facts or wilfully ignorant. Today's view of Columbus as a colonizer, genocidal maniac was crafted by a Marxist historian, Howard Zinn, in 1980. His book A People's History is full of distortions and lies. Yet, it is the basis for how NEA teaches history. All we know about Columbus is he was a navigator, made four trips to the West, charted much of the Caribbean, spoke Spanish, Italian and Latin, sailed for Spanish crown, never enslaved anyone, never harmed anyone. The lies from Zinn has monstrously manipulated the black population and defiled the memory and accomplishments of a navigator that opened the New World for its wonderful explorations and discoveries. The rest, war, disease, famine, slavery are the tale of humanity not Columbus.