Rebuttal to Andy Rooney's comments about Columbus' importance in American History

It is extremely hard to take Andy Rooney seriously when he utters, "If you were going to make a list of the great times in American history, you'd start with the day in 1492, when Columbus got here." It is hard pressed to say that you can just start with someone, who for all intensive purposes, failed at what he set out to do. I do not agree with the statement made by Rooney and supported …showed first 75 words of 653 total…

…showed last 75 words of 653 total…can ignore the others who shaped the land we now live on and give all credit to Columbus. Fourteen different voyages landed in some part of the America and that alone disproves the theory that textbooks and history courses should focus on the European explorers and their accomplishments. Hiding the truth of the past would make it seem as though we are too ignorant as a nation to talk about the reality of the past.