On yesterday's CBS Sunday Morning, Mo Rocca asked, "Why do we celebrate Columbus Day?" Christopher Columbus (not the Home Alone director) did not, as he points out, actually discover America. And besides, he was a total dick; everybody knows Columbus Day was only created by Franklin D. Roosevelt to court the Italian-American vote. But if you feel like honoring our genocidal, egomaniacal founding father, you can make a pilgrimage to New York's Columbus Circle.

But holidays are way less fun when you look into their origins. Some holidays ruined by their origin stories include:

  • Valentine's Day: honoring a Christian martyr who was tortured and killed.
  • Labor Day: honoring America's union movement (this applies to Republicans only).
  • Thanksgiving Day: honoring a brief peace between colonists and Native Americans, before we stole their land and killed many of them.

But, hey, is anything ever as great as it sounds upon close inspection? And if you have the day off, enjoy!

[Screengrab via CBS Sunday Morning]