Columbus Day is a national holiday in several countries of the Americans which commemorates the advent of Christopher Columbus to the Americans on the 12th of October, 1492, according to the Julian calendar. Columbus was an Italian explorer who spent three months in the Atlantic Ocean in an endeavor to find a faster route across the waters to the New World. The discovery of the New World commenced the Columbian Exchange – the reciprocity of goods, culture, and populations betwixt the old and the new world.