Colonies have been sought after by many different peoples, and most notably by Europeans. After 1492, when Columbus set foot on the Americas, Western European nations set about colonizing all four corners of the Earth. In pursuit of territorial conquest, numerous crimes against humanity were committed against indigenous peoples by the European colonial powers and European settlers. Indeed, human history's greatest genocide is the conquest of the Americas at the expense of the native peoples. It would be fitting that sincere apologies were issued to those peoples of the world who suffered under colonialism.