Today marks Italy’s National Christopher Columbus Day, established in 2004 to honor one of the greatest Italians our nation can claim as its own.
With his extraordinary voyage 533 years ago, Columbus gave the world another world. He conceived an adventure that no one before him had dared to imagine. He sailed westward, beyond the boundaries of the known world. A “new Ulysses” who did not founder, but instead succeeded in one of the most glorious undertakings in history—an achievement that marked the transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era, reshaped geography, and transformed the political, cultural, and economic relations among peoples.
Columbus’s voyage laid the foundation for the enduring bond that unites the two shores of the Atlantic—Europe and America—and represents the core of what we call the West. Not merely a physical or geographical space, but a system of values we are determined to defend and preserve. Our mission is not to tear down the statues of the past or erase the heroes who shaped our identity, but to add our own statues and heroes to that story—with pride and humility.
Today we reaffirm our identity and work to strengthen it, because without that identity we cannot rise again and restore the West to its rightful place in the world.
Columbus is honored today in many nations around the globe, beginning with the United States. The great Genoese navigator stands at the origin of the bonds that unite the Italian and American peoples—bonds now stronger than ever, thanks in part to the invaluable contributions of the Italian American community to the growth, prosperity, and strength of the United States.
To defend and celebrate Columbus is to defend and celebrate our deepest identity, and all that makes us, in the eyes of the world, so admired, appreciated, and respected.
