Everyone says Christopher Columbus was not the first to discover “America”, or more accurately, the New World. Some will name Amerigo Vespucci. Yet, it is true that Columbus discovered the New World in 1492 and Vespucci’s first voyage left Spain in 1497. So, now the only issue is Leif Erickson’s claim to discovering America around 1001. Does the SD concur?
Define “discovered”.
Chief Wa’ka’lu’to of the Nephilaree people, 11300 BC…
Who says Amerigo Vespucci discovered America?
IIRC the Americas were populated by at least two or maybe three different waves of people, the second and third coming long after the first. So the ancestors of the Apache and Navajo, and much later the ancestors of Inuits and Aleuts, would have discovered an already populated continent.
Beyond that, I find the idea that there was some limited contact between South Americans and Polynesians on at least one occasion to be convincing (sweet potatoes ended up in Polynesia before Colombus, and chickens may have travelled the other way: there are also one or two other species that supposedly give some indication of trans-oceanic travel).
There may have also have been some trans-atlantic contact by English fishermen shortly before Colombus, and then there are more speculative hypotheses about trans-atlantic or trans-pacific contacts, make what you will of those.
It is unquestionable that the Norse were in North America by around 1000, as established by the archaeological site at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. However, these discoveries were not widely publicized in Europe.
Columbus is the first verified European explorer to reach the New World after that. It is possible that others may have reached eastern Canada or Brazil before that date, but the evidence is thin.
There is no question that Vespucci reached the New World well after Columbus. The reason the Americas were name after him is because he was the first to promote the idea that they were actually a “New World,” a new continent not known to the ancients, while Columbus kept insisting they were part of Asia.
We do this about every 6 months. The Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows is proof positive that they were in “The New World” centuries before Columbus.
And thousands of years after somebody crossed over from Russia…
Using what IMHO is the reasonable condition that ‘discovered’ means ‘led to colonization/trade with the rest of the world’, I’d give it to Columbus. The Norse were in North America, the British may have been fishing the Grand Banks, and of course Asians had migrated in a long time before 1492.
From a modern viewpoint, none of those really affected things. Even if he didn’t know what he’d found, Columbus (for good and ill) opened up the new world to the old one.
I’ve read that Portugese fishermen were fishing the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, and may have made brief landings for repairs or taking on water, after the Viking settlement but before Columbus showed up. I wish I could remember where I read that.
And then there was St. Brendan, of course.
Here s a thread I started recently.
The issue at hand is and remains complex.
I read the answers to my OP, but I was somehow not satisfied with them.
I’m really not sure why…
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This is GQ, not IMHO, so we should go with the definition that historians use. In that case, it goes to The Vikings.
This comes up in every one of these threads, and no one is able to produce concrete evidence. There are lots of of conjectures about Europeans who might have got to the Americas first, but The Vikings are the earliest documented and proven.
Does Greenland count as “America”? At its closest point, Greenland is 13 miles from islands of Canada, while Newfoundland is 11 miles from Canada’s mainland. So the argument could be made that early mariners reaching Greenland were just as legitimately finding America as those who settled in Newfoundland.
Eric the Red established three fixed Norse settlements in Greenland in 986.
In fact, the most compelling reason for not including Greenland as a part of the Americas is the fact that Europeans have been there so long. That would be, by any reckoning, a trans-Atlantic journey.
For what it’s worth, Ponce de Leon appears to be the first European to set foot on the mainland of what is now the United States of America, in 1513. Cabot may have seen Maine in 1497, but that is not recorded.
We “Americans” need to give some love to Ponce de León, who discovered Florida in 1513. He seems to be the first European explorer to set foot on what is now the United States, something neither Columbus nor the Vikings ever did.
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That name should be taken out and shot for apostrophe abuse.
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That date is way too late. By at least 5000 years.
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The first proto-Indians almost certainly migrated along the coasts of Asia and Beringia and then to North America. This was during the last ice age when sea levels were much lower than today. Pretty much all the evidence for the migration is under quite a bit of water and will be very difficult to find.
Or it could be Basque, Breton or others. The problem with the Grand Banks/fisher hypotheses is that the fishermen of that era were largely illiterate as well as secretive about any major fishing spots they found. So it’s hard to prove they were there before ol’ Christopher.
Well, except for the evidence that there’s people who were here before the Europeans. I’d say that’s prima facie evidence that they migrated to the Americas - thereby discovering them - prior to Erickson et al.
If you’re taking a test just put down whatever the teacher told you.
Some anonymous Siberians discovered America.
Columbus’ contribution to discovering America was that America stayed discovered after he did it.
I meant the evidence for the migration by the coastal route. There’s fairly good evidence there were people in the Americas by about 18000 years ago (Monte Verde) and some evidence going back as far as 30,000 years (can’t remember the name of the site, but it was highly disputed).