It was around 2 in the morning on Oct. 12, 1492, when the world changed.

At that time, Rodrigo de Triana, serving on board a Spanish ship under the command of an Italian admiral, spotted land (an island, specifically) and passed the information on to his superiors.

It was welcome news for the commander of the expedition, Christopher Columbus, who was facing growing unease and some talk of rebellion among his crew after more than two months at sea.

The New World had been discovered, starting with the Bahamian island of Guanahani.

In 1937, President Roosevelt declared Oct. 12 to be recognized every year as "Columbus Day," but it was in 1971 that President Nixon made the second Monday in October the official federal "Columbus Day" holiday.

Columbus and his voyages have been coated with so many centuries of myths, misconceptions and misinformation that the truth is often hard to find.

The Internet can provide a good and interesting starting point for learning more about Columbus, his voyages and the impact of European contact with the Americas. Below are several good Web sites worth visiting:

Columbus Day History

www.history.com/minisites/columbusday/

From the History Channel, a great collection of information and viewable online videos about Columbus.

OSIA: Columbus

www.osia.org/public/culture/columbus.asp

From the Order Sons of Italy in America, a good collection of materials in a downloadable PDF format.

1492: An Ongoing Voyage

www.loc.gov/exhibits/1492/intro.html

A Library of Congress online exhibition examining Columbus' voyages and the impact they had on Europe and the Americas.

Columbus Journal Extracts

www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/columbus1.html

Excerpts from Christopher Columbus' journals of his voyages, including an account of the Oct. 12 discovery of land.

About Columbus Day

www.wilstar.com/holidays/columbus.htm

Good, brief overview of the day and the man behind the day.

Columbus Myths

www.millersville.edu/~columbus/data/art/LAUFER02.ART

A text page detailing various myths and facts about Columbus and hisvoyages.

Wikipedia: Columbus Day

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day

A reasonably referenced and documented overview of Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the Americas in 1492 and the celebrations (and protests) that mark Columbus Day.

Keeping up on financial news

With the stock market sliding (and just about every other financial market in the world, for that matter), people are looking online for information, advice and help.

The best advice would come from the real world in the form of your local investment adviser. In the digital world, you can follow the daily developments, get some insight into why things are the way they are and learn the basics of investing in stocks and mutual funds.

If you're looking to follow the day to day reporting of the financial crisis, try the Web sites of business publications like Business Week (www.businessweek.com), The Wall Street Journal (www.wsj.com), Barron's (www.barrons.com), Dollars and Sense (www.dollarsandsense.org), Inc (www.inc.com), Forbes (www.forbes.com), Fortune (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/), Entrepreneur (www.entrepreneur.com), Harvard Business Review (www.harvardbusinessreview.com) and others.

The daily national news sites like USA Today (www.usatoday.com), CNN (www.cnn.com), Fox News (www.foxnews.com) and others have good general interest news about the market meltdown, but you'll find more business specific information at the business publication sites.

To learn more about what the Wall Street collapse means to you, do a search on the phrase, "what does Wall Street mean to me," and make sure the whole phrase is surrounded by quotemarks.

To learn more about the basics of investing, try these beginning site links:

Motley Fool: www.fool.com

Investing Basics: http://money.aol.com/investing/stocks/basics

Basics Of Investing: http://finance.yahoo.com/education/begin_investing

Top Things To Know: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/money101/lesson4/

Learning The Stock Market: http://pages.prodigy.com/wealth/learn.htm

About Stocks: http://stocks.about.com/

(Keith Darnay is the webmaster and designer for bismarcktribune.com. His Web site, featuring this column going back to 1995, is at www.darnay.com.iec.)