Andrew Yang is in dire need of a tutorial in world history. 

In a shambolic interview with the Daily News Editorial Board, the New York City mayoral contender displayed his profound ignorance of one of humanity’s most epochal events: “I’ve always found it odd that we celebrate Columbus Day, honestly.” 

According to Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, Christopher Columbus’s journey to the New World “was the most significant event to happen in our species.” As Dr. Tyson noted, Cristoforo Colombo “rejoined two branches of the human species” for the first time in 10,000 years. 

The Admiral of the Ocean Sea’s bold trek across the wine-dark Atlantic was historically seismic. 

Moreover, the ancestral lineage of Italian-Americans can be traced to the land John Milton hailed as “the seat of civilization.” Italy is the birthplace of the Pax Romana, capitalism, and modern science. Cristoforo Colombo was a product of the selfsame Italian Renaissance that included Leonardo da Vinci, Paolo Toscanelli, Sandro Botticelli, Lorenzo de Medici and Amerigo Vespucci — America’s namesake. 

“Without the Italian Renaissance,” wrote Columbus scholar Paolo Emilio Taviani, “there would have been no modern age. Christopher Columbus symbolizes the creative genius of Italy shaping the beginning of the modern age.” 

And absent Columbus, there would be no E Pluribus Unum, (“Out of many, one”); no checks and balances; no tripartite government; and no American Republic — “the last best hope of Earth.”  -RAI

[This letter was published in the NY Daily News on 26 April 2021]