Hundreds of thousands of people celebrated their Italian heritage at the 79th annual Columbus Day Parade in New York City on Monday. It’s the world’s largest celebration of Italian heritage and it all happens on Fifth Avenue. Columbus Citizens Foundation is the nonprofit organization that puts on the parade. Marian Pardo is the board chair and says the parade has roots going back to 1929.

On Monday, more than 100 groups made their way uptown starting at 47th Street and ending at 72nd Street. Leading them was Grand Marshal Beth Paretta of Paretta Autosport, a woman-owned and woman-driven IndyCar team. "It’s the idea of certainly being a woman who’s doing some nontraditional things, maybe some extraordinary things, and ideally setting the example for other young women of what they can achieve," Paretta said.