A rare original copy of a letter written by Christopher Columbus is being returned from the New World to the Old. The letter, which details his 1492 voyage to the Americas, was stolen from the Riccardiana Library in Florence, Italy and replaced with a forgery. A tip made in 2012 led U.S. investigators to the real copy, which was being held at the Library of Congress. With historian Bill Keegan, Here & Now’s Peter O’Dowd details the return of the letter and its significance as one of the earliest surviving documents written about America.
Guest
- Bill Keegan, curator of Caribbean Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.