Columbus Day was first celebrated on October 12, 1792, to mark the 300th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's landing in the Americas. It became a legal holiday in the United States as a one-time national celebration in 1892 by President Benjamin Harrison. Later, it was proclaimed an annual federal holiday by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937. Finally, legislation to create Columbus Day as a federal holiday was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on June 28, 1968, and it became effective starting in 1971, observed on the second Monday in October each year.