John Oliver's Last Week Tonight brutally deconstructs Columbus Day, wants to replace it with Frank Sinatra Day

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight brutally deconstructs Columbus Day, wants to replace it with Frank Sinatra Day
(Image credit: Last Week Tonight)

Most Americans don't celebrate Columbus Day anymore — few get the day off, and many people don't even remember it's a federal holiday until the mail doesn't come. John Oliver's Last Week Tonight marked the holiday with a brutal takedown.

The narrator starts out relatively gently, quipping that Columbus Day celebrates its namesake landing in the Bahamas in 1492, "starting a long tradition of obnoxious white people visiting Caribbean islands and acting like they own the place." Then things get more pointed: Columbus is "famous for his discoveries — specifically, the discovery that you can 'discover' a continent with millions of people already living on it, that had already been visited by Vikings around 500 years earlier." And then comes the animated bloodshed.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.