Is Columbus Day the same as Indigenous Peoples' Day?

No. Only Columbus Day is named in 5 U.S.C. 6103(a); Indigenous Peoples' Day was marked by presidential proclamation from 2021 through 2024 and exists as state law in, among others, Maine and New Mexico.

Why is Columbus Day on the second Monday in October?

The Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968 put it there, and that change took effect on January 1, 1971. The 1934 instruments had named October 12 instead.

Does every state call it Columbus Day?

No. South Dakota's code names the second Monday in October Native Americans' Day, and Maine and New Mexico replaced the name with Indigenous Peoples Day in 2019.

Columbus Day

Next celebratedMonday, October 11, 2027

Federal law sets Columbus Day on the second Monday in October, and the same Monday is Native Americans' Day in South Dakota's code and Discoverers' Day in Hawaii's.

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATESecond Monday in October

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYFederal

ORIGIN

Enacted Law

FOUNDING ENTITY

United States Congress

FIRST OBSERVED

1934

“The note the clerks printed in the margin of the 1934 resolution: "Columbus Day. President requested to issue proclamation commemorating."

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The resolution usually credited created no holiday.

Congress passed a joint resolution on 30 April 1934 (Pub. Res. 73-21, 48 Stat. 657) asking the President to proclaim 12 October each year as Columbus Day and to have the flag flown on government buildings, and Franklin D. Roosevelt did so in Proclamation 2101 on 30 September 1934. Neither instrument made it a holiday: the Uniform Monday Holiday Act (Pub. L. 90-363, 28 June 1968, 82 Stat. 250) added Columbus Day to the federal legal public holidays in 5 U.S.C. 6103(a) and set it on the second Monday in October, effective 1 January 1971.

Read the 1934 joint resolutionvia U.S. Government Publishing Office

INTRO

The pledge was printed for a holiday that lasted one day

The programme for the first national Columbus observance told American schoolchildren to stand and recite together. What they were given to say was the Pledge of Allegiance, in its original wording: "I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which..." Two California newspapers printed that programme under the headline "THE OFFICIAL PROGRAMME. Prepared for the National Columbian Public School Celebration of Oct. 21."

That celebration happened once. Benjamin Harrison appointed Friday, October 21, 1892 a general holiday for the four hundredth anniversary of what his proclamation called "the discovery of America by Columbus", and the appointment covered that one day.

Columbus Day is usually dated to a joint resolution Congress passed in 1934. That resolution asked for a proclamation and a flag on government buildings, and it created no holiday. The day became a federal legal public holiday under a 1968 statute, which also moved it off October 12 and onto a Monday.

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ORIGINS

Columbus Day history

INTRODUCTION

In December 1891 Benjamin Harrison brought a lynching to Congress. He told it that the March lynching at New Orleans of "eleven men of Italian nativity by a mob of citizens" was "a most deplorable and discreditable incident". He added that federal officers and courts had "no power in such cases to intervene".

Italy's minister had demanded punishment and an indemnity for the families. A year later Harrison reported the settlement: the government had expressed "its reprobation and abhorrence of the lynching of Italian subjects in New Orleans by the payment of 125,000 francs, or $24,330.90".

CHAPTER 01

A proclamation that explains itself

Harrison's Columbus proclamation sits between those two messages, signed on July 21, 1892. It recites only two grounds: a joint resolution approved on June 29, 1892, and the four hundredth anniversary. The New Orleans case is not among its grounds.

CHAPTER 02

A flag, and no day off

Congress came back to the date in 1934. A joint resolution approved on April 30 asked the President to proclaim October 12 of each year as Columbus Day. It also asked for the flag to be flown "on all Government buildings on said date", and for people to be invited to mark the day "in schools and churches, or other suitable places".

Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the proclamation on September 30, 1934, countersigned by Secretary of State Cordell Hull. It designated the date, directed the flag display and invited the observance. Neither instrument gave anyone a day off, and neither made Columbus Day a legal public holiday.

CHAPTER 03

The Monday that made it a holiday

The change came in 1968, inside an act about moving holidays onto Mondays. The Uniform Monday Holiday Act rewrote the federal list, and the Code's own amendment note records that it "added Columbus Day, the second Monday in October, to the enumerated legal public holidays".

The amendment took effect on January 1, 1971. That was the first day Columbus Day stood in the statute as a legal public holiday, on a Monday rather than on a date.

The same act had also moved Veterans Day to the fourth Monday in October. Congress reversed that in 1975 and sent Veterans Day back to November 11. The Monday given to Columbus Day was never taken away.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why Columbus Day Matters

STATUTE

The statute names the day. The proclamations argue about the man.

The federal entry for the holiday is one line in 5 U.S.C. 6103(a): the name, and the second Monday in October. The statute carries no characterisation of Columbus at all. The presidential proclamations of 2021 and 2025 carry that language instead.

PROCLAMATIONS

Two proclamations, one October Monday

From 2021 one October Monday carried two federal proclamations, the Columbus Day one and an Indigenous Peoples' Day one. In 2025 the Columbus Day proclamation was issued and no Indigenous Peoples' Day proclamation appears in the Federal Register's index for that year.

SCHOOLS

It was aimed at classrooms first

Harrison's proclamation made schools the center of the 1892 observance and asked that the national flag "float over every schoolhouse in the country". In the same sentence he asked that the exercises "impress upon our youth the patriotic duties of American citizenship".

AT A GLANCE

The day's legal file

Current statute: 5 U.S.C. 6103(a)
Date in law: Second Monday in October
1934 instrument: Pub. Res. 73-21, 48 Stat. 657
1968 instrument: Pub. L. 90-363, 82 Stat. 250
Holiday status from: January 1, 1971

BY THE NUMBERS

Columbus Day by the Numbers

11: US federal legal public holidays
32: Columbus Day proclamations, 1994 to 2025
4: Indigenous Peoples' Day proclamations, 2021 to 2024

TIMELINE

Timeline

A one-day national holiday

Benjamin Harrison appointed Friday, October 21 a general holiday for the four hundredth anniversary, for that year only.

Congress asks for a proclamation

Public Resolution 73-21 asked the President for an annual proclamation of October 12 and a flag display on government buildings.

Added to the federal holiday list

The Uniform Monday Holiday Act put Columbus Day on the second Monday in October in 5 U.S.C. 6103(a), effective January 1, 1971.

Hawaii names it Discoverers' Day

HRS 8-1.5 named the second Monday in October for the Polynesian discoverers of the Hawaiian Islands.

South Dakota's Native Americans' Day

SDCL 1-5-1.2 made the same Monday a state legal holiday under the name Native Americans' Day.

Maine and New Mexico rename the day

Maine and New Mexico struck Columbus Day from their holiday statutes and put Indigenous Peoples Day in its place.

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about Columbus Day

Alabama gives the same Monday three names

Code of Alabama section 1-3-8(a)(10) reads "Columbus Day, Fraternal Day, and American Indian Heritage Day, the second Monday in October."

Maine had to make the same change four times

The rename struck the old name and inserted Indigenous Peoples Day in four separate titles of Maine law, down to the definition of a "business day" for door-to-door sales.

South Dakota's code drops the name entirely

Columbus Day appears nowhere in SDCL 1-5-1, the section that enumerates the state's legal holidays, and the statute filling that October slot dedicates it "to the remembrance of the great Native American leaders who contributed so much to the history of our state".

Hawaii lists neither name as a state holiday

HRS 8-1.5 says the October Monday "is not and shall not be construed to be a state holiday", and HRS 8-1, which lists Hawaii's state holidays, names neither Discoverers' Day nor Columbus Day.

One 1892 newspaper archive returns it 51 times

In the California Digital Newspaper Collection, restricted to items published in 1892, the phrase Columbian Public School Celebration returns 51 items.

For generations, Federal policies systematically sought to assimilate and displace Native people and eradicate Native cultures.

Proclamation 10283 of October 8, 2021Indigenous Peoples' Day, 2021, Federal Register

we pledge to reclaim his extraordinary legacy of faith, courage, perseverance, and virtue from the left-wing arsonists who have sought to destroy his name and dishonor his memory

Proclamation 10980 of October 9, 2025Columbus Day, 2025, Federal Register

GOOD TO KNOW

Columbus Day Around the World

Spain

Ley 18/1987 declares October 12 the Fiesta Nacional de España for all purposes, and the words Colón, descubrimiento and Hispanidad appear nowhere in the law's text

Argentina

Ley 27.399 lists October 12 as the Día del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural among the movable national holidays, which move to the preceding Monday when they fall on a Tuesday or Wednesday and to the following Monday when they fall on a Thursday or Friday

New Mexico

the state's compiler records that the 2019 amendment, effective July 1 that year, "replaced Columbus day with Indigenous Peoples' day as a legal public holiday in New Mexico"

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe Columbus Day

Read the 1934 joint resolution in full

Its whole operative demand is one sentence long. The page scan in the Statutes at Large shows the marginal notes the clerks wrote beside it.

Search an 1892 newspaper archive

The California Digital Newspaper Collection lets you restrict a search to items published in a single year. Try a phrase from the school programme and read what the papers printed around it.

COMPARE

Compare two presidential proclamations

The Federal Register publishes each one in full text. Reading the 2025 Columbus Day proclamation beside the 2021 Indigenous Peoples' Day proclamation shows how differently one October Monday has been described.

LOOK

Look up how your own state names the date

Legislatures publish their holiday sections free online, and the second Monday in October is not labelled the same way in every code. Hawaii's HRS 8-1.5 runs to a single sentence.

CHECK

Check this year's proclamation in the Federal Register

Presidential proclamations are published there under their own titles, one document per year. A search of that index for the current year shows which names the October Monday was proclaimed under.

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