Did Columbus really discover America?

Question

Supposedly he did not even set foot on American soil.

Answer 1

.He actually discovered the Caribbean.

Answer 2

He never set foot, as far as I know, on any land from the continental U.S.
He did "discover", basically, the Western Hemisphere. He traveled to the Caribbean, like the Dominican Republic area, etc. But he wasn't first.
The Nordic peoples had settled Greenland, Labrador, and locations in Canada and had settlements there for centuries. Due to climate change they were packing up and leaving at about the same time that Columbus was "discovering" the AmericaS.
And of course, the Native Americans "discovered" the Western Hemisphere in at least 3 waves of settlements that came on over the Bering Strait during mini-ice ages when ocean levels were low and there was nearly a complete land bridge the could cross with small boats by island hopping.

Answer 3

Since the beginning of the mankind, people explored. People always wanted to figure out what lies across the ocean or the tall mountain behind them. They wanted to find new, unknown lands and, most of the time to find riches. Often people associate Christopher Columbus as the discoverer of Americas. But there is evidence that way before Columbus, adventurers from many different worlds might have touched on the America's soil. And of course, when Columbus touched the Americas, millions of Native People already lived there for centuries. LONG BEFORE the white man set foot on American soil, the American Indians, or rather the Native Americans, had been living in America. When the Europeans came here, there were probably about 10 million Indians populating America north of present-day Mexico. And they had been living in America for quite some time. It is believed that the first Native Americans arrived during the last ice-age, approximately 20,000 - 30,000 years ago through a land-bridge across the Bering Sound, from northeastern Siberia into Alaska. The oldest documented Indian cultures in North America are Sandia (15000 BC), Clovis (12000 BC) and Folsom (8000 BC)

Although it is believed that the Indians originated in Asia, few if any of them came from India. The name "Indian" was first applied to them by Christopher Columbus, who believed mistakenly that the mainland and islands of America were part of the Indies, in Asia.

So, when the Europeans started to arrive in the 16th- and 17th-century they were met by Native Americans, and enthusiastically so. The Natives regarded their white-complexioned visitors as something of a marvel, not only for their outlandish dress and beards and winged ships but even more for their wonderful technology - steel knives and swords, fire-belching arquebus and cannon, mirrors, hawkbells and earrings, copper and brass kettles, and so on.

Answer 4

Most definitely! Columbus is rightfully credited with discovering America. And yes, he never set foot on American soil -- at least on the American continent.

But to appreciate this, you must realize the impact of what Columbus did. Before his voyage, the Indians and Eskimos were already here; they'd crossed the land bridge from Asia thousands of years before. Leif Ericsson and the Vikings had spent a few years on Newfoundland around 1000 CE. There were legends about an Irish monk, Prester John, who reputedly reached America sometime in the Middle Ages. And some believe that the great Chinese admiral, Cheng Ho, reached the Americas with his treasure fleet early in the Ming dynasty (ca. 1400 CE).

But none of those exploits, whether true or not, awakened Europe to the existence of the New World. It was Columbus's first voyage that did that.

In the half-century before his 1492 voyage, Europe, led by Portugal, then Spain, embarked on what we now call the Age of Discovery. This was technology-driven, for vessels capable of long ocean voyages had just been developed. Portugal's Prince Henry the Navigator got it all going around 1450 when he sponsored Bartholomew Diaz's rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, then Vasco da Gama's trip to India along the same route.

Enter Columbus. His idea, which he had to sell to royalty to get financing, was that you could reach the Indies (India) and Cipangu (Japan) by sailing across the Atlantic from Europe. His first achievement was to get sponsorship from Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain.

No enlightened person in 15th century Europe believed that the world is flat. Everyone knew it's round, but no one had ever tried to do what Columbus proposed. And, most critically, no one knew there was a vast continent -- a New World -- that lay to the west across the Atlantic.

Columbus had underestimated the size of the earth by 25%. To appreciate that, think of how far it would be from Europe to Asia across the Atlantic Pacific if the Americas weren't there! If Columbus had known how large the earth really is, he might not have even started out.

Columbus was a great leader of men. His second great achievement was to keep them in line while his three small ships plowed west, out of sight of land for two months, into the unknown. Previous voyages, such as those of Diaz and da Gama, were "coasting", hugging the shoreline except for relatively short stretches of open ocean (e.g., da Gama's crossing of the Arabian Sea from Africa to India).

Finally and most significantly for this question, Columbus's first voyage provided regarding the existence of the New World. Subsequent voyages of discovery -- Cabral, Cabot, Cartier, and others, including Columbus's other three -- did not have the uncertainty of his first voyage.

That's why he is properly credited with the discovery of America.

Columbus opened the floodgates. The Spanish conquistadores, the French missionaries and explorers, and the English colonists all followed.

America was named because Amerigo Vespucci, who sailed with Cabral and Ojeda along the Brazilian coast, gave his name to Martin Waldseemuller, a German mapmaker who called the land America. The Spanish didn't like that; they wanted to keep the whole thing a secret so they could exploit it in their competition with the Portuguese who had a monopoly on the spice trade with the Orient. But Waldseemuller's map, with "America" prominently featured, let the cat out of the bag.

Answer 5

You are hanging on a techinicality here. Columbus did discovered America (as in the Continent, America. Remember the name of the country is the United States OF America) because until he returned from his first travel the land was unknown to exist for the average European, but he never knew it was a new continent he thought he had arrived to the west indies. It was Amerigo Vespucci who realized the land was an entire new continent. That's why the continet is called America and not Columbia.

Answer 6

NO... Columbus discovered the West Indies... he discovered the Bahamas... he discovered Cuba... he discovered the island of Hispañola... he discovered some of the leeward and windward islands... but what he did NOT discover, was the CONTINENT of North America.

Columbus did NOT SET FOOT on what is now, American soil nor did he even know that North America existed.

Answer 7

In fourteen hundred ninty two Columbus sailed the ocean blue! Columbus discovered the Americas! What technically is discover? Anyone can discover something for themselves even if someone was there first.

Answer 8

Well, he set foot on many Caribbean islands and discovered much of Central America.

But, if you say he didnt discovered America, then who discovered America?? the Vikings??the Chinese??The Aliens???,

Then, In all these cases, by now there should only be native Americans living on American soil, cos the rest of the world wouldnt have ever known of its existence...

Answer 9

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Columbus made it to caribean islands and maybe costa rica. He came many centuries after Viking settlements occured in North America and millenia after the Asians walked here across the frozen Strait. Columbus was a very bad man who murdered for profit.

Answer 10

No. He ran into an island in the Atlantic and thought he had come to India.
Vikings discovered the Eastern part of the continent of North America, and China explored the coasts of the Pacific on both South and North America.
Amerigo Vespucci drew the maps so it got named "America".

Answer 11

No, of course not. Viking explorers were settling in Canada circa 1000. The importance of Columbus is that once he "discovered" America migration continued (up to the present if you care to get technical)