>>214061987
Back in the early 20th century, Italians in the USA were butthurt because nobody considered them white, so a bunch of wealthy Italians started commissioning statues of Christopher Columbus (who until this time was just a footnote), getting schoolbooks printed that contained favorable information about him, and generally started pushing him as "the first American." This even resulted in Columbus Day becoming a federal holiday.
In fact, they were so successful that barely a hundred years later, the government renamed Columbus Day into Indigenous Peoples Day because Columbus is now considered too white.