Columbus Day in Denver. The first statewide holiday was proclaimed by Colorado governor Jesse F. McDonald in 1905, and it was made a statutory holiday in 1907. In April 1934, as a result of lobbying by the Knights of Columbus and New York City Italian leader Generoso Pope, Congress and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed October 12 be a federal holiday under the name Columbus Day. Since 1971 (Oct. 11), the holiday has been attributed to the second Monday in October, coincidentally exactly the same day as Thanksgivingin neighboring Canada since 1957. It is generally observed nowadays by banks, the bond market,
Columbus Day organization, the Knights of Columbus. Some anti-Catholics, notably including the Ku Klux Klan and the Women of the Ku Klux Klan, opposed celebrations of Columbus or monuments about him because they thought that it increased Catholic influence in the United States, which was largely a Protestant country. By far the more common opposition today, decrying both Columbus' and other Europeans' actions against the indigenous populations of the Americas, did not gain much traction until the latter half of the 20th century. This opposition was led by Native Americans and expanded upon by left-wing political parties, though it has become more