Does Columbus deserve his own day?

He never set foot in North America, never even knew it existed. He wasn’t even first to discover the continent from Europe. So just why do we commemorate Columbus Day anyway?

It’s a question Ross and Burbank put to comedian Mo Rocca, who joined the show Monday to talk about his research into the explorer credited (wrongly) with discovering America.

“I don’t know that anyone deserves credit. Indians that walked across the Bering Strait?,” Rocca says. “I mean they were barefoot and it was really cold.”

Rocca says Columbus just had a really good publicist. Still, he says the spirit is worth celebrating, if not the man (who he says he learned was a total jerk.)

“I mean is anyone really sitting around honoring Christopher Columbus? If Columbus Day has become for many people synonymous with Italian American heritage, well that’s great I really mean that and that’s important and that should be respected.”