"People of the United States have been blindly celebrating Columbus Day ..."

If by blindly celebrating you mean walking to the mailbox after work, finding it empty, and then remembering the mailman had the day off, then yeah I'm partying like its 1999.

I've always advocated for calling it Explorers Day, to honor not just Columbus but Magellan, de Gama, Ericksen, and others of that era plus folks like Lewis and Clark and Neil Armstrong.