Alfred Vellucci
An Italian American, Vellucci was opposed to the idea that Leif Ericcson, rather than Christopher Columbus, discovered America. After a group of scholars from Harvard promoted the claim that Ericcson discovered America, he proposed a motion to the Cambridge City Council that officially renamed Harvard Square to Columbus Square. He also planted a large tree in front of the Harvard Lampoon Building, claiming that it was an eyesore and arguing that the "Harvard Lampoon" had insulted Italian Americans by claiming that the Irish discovered America. He feuded with the "Harvard Lampoon" for years. The paper often satirized him, one issue running an Alfred E. Neuman style picture of him on its cover. On one occasion, he unsuccessfully proposed a city ordinance declaring their headquarters a public urinal.
History of Nova Scotia
Venetian Italian explorer Zuan Chabotto (Italian: Giovanni Caboto) known in English as John Cabot, was the first European explorer to the North American continent whose voyage of exploration ushered irrevocable transformation of global social economic interaction. Caboto/Cabot's voyage received financial backing by Italian banking houses in London and the Bardi family banking firm of Florence. With financing secure and patent issued by Henry VII to Cabot and his three sons, he set sail in 1496. Upon landing on 24 June 1497, Cabot raised the Venetian and Papal banners, claiming the land for the King of England and recognising the religious authority of the Roman Catholic Church. After this landing, Cabot spent some weeks "discovering the coast," with most "discovered after turning back." Cabot's expedition is believed to be the first by Europeans to mainland North America since the Vikings five hundred years before. Historian Alwyn Ruddock who worked on Cabot and his era for 35 years suggested Fr. Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis and the other friars who accompanied Cobot's 1498 expedition had stayed in Newfoundland and founded a mission which would have made it the first Christian settlement on the continent. Nova Scotia was further explored by the Portuguese explorer João Álvares Fagundes (1520) as he searched south of his fishing settlements in Newfoundland.