was columbus really the first explorer to discover the Americas?

Answer 1

Explorer with explorer title, maybe. But before him there were the vikings, which you cannot exactly call explorers, but in a way they were exploring.
Lately I read an article that it might be that before vikings, there were asian or indian tribes coming to America from Asia via Bering Sea/Alaska.
The population of the Americas cannot count as "exploring" or "discovering" America.
For Europe, America was a DISCOVERY, a big one.

Answer 2

As there were already people of Asian descent living in America when Columbus arrived (who we call the Indians), it is apparent that other people "found" America before Columbus.

He was not the first explorer to discover that this hunk of land was here. But he was the first explorer to be in the right time and place to make his discovery the one that changed the world's view of it and lead to the exploration, colonization, etc of the land that would come to be called the Americas.

The acient Greeks had discovered that the world was round and revolved around the sun, but Galileo gets the credit. His was find that changed the world The Chinese were printing with movable type centuries before Guntenberg, but he was the one credited with the discovery because his was the one that changed the world's view of it.

So Columbus gets the credit because his was the discovery that changed the world's view of it.

Answer 3

China map lays claim to Americas
A map due to be unveiled in Beijing and London next week may lend weight to a theory a Chinese admiral discovered America before Christopher Columbus.

The map, which shows North and South America, apparently states that it is a 1763 copy of another map made in 1418.

If true, it could imply Chinese mariners discovered and mapped America decades before Columbus' 1492 arrival.

The map, which is being dated to check it was made in 1763, faces a lot of scepticism from experts.

Chinese characters written beside the map say it was drawn by Mo Yi Tong and copied from a map made in the 16th year of the Emperor Yongle, or 1418.

It clearly shows Africa and Australia.

The British Isles, however, are not marked.

Controversial claim

The map was bought for about $500 from a Shanghai dealer in 2001 by a Chinese lawyer and collector, Liu Gang.

According to the Economist magazine, Mr Liu only became aware of the map's potential significance after he read a book by British author Gavin Menzies.

The book, 1421: The Year China discovered the World, made the controversial claim that a Chinese admiral and eunuch, Zheng He, sailed around the world and discovered America on the way.

Zheng He, a Muslim mariner and explorer, is widely thought to have sailed around South East Asia and India, but the claim he visited America is hotly disputed.

The map is now being tested to check the age of its paper and ink, with the results due to be known in February.

Even if it does prove to have been drawn in 1763, sceptics will point out that we still only have the mapmaker's word that he copied if from a 1418 map, rather than from a more recent one.

Answer 4

That's a great big honking NO. There were dozens of explorers, possibly hundreds, before Columbus. He wasn't even the first European. We have incontrevertible proof that the vikings established villages on the coast of northern North America.

Also, Columbus never once in his life set foot on actual America. All his discoveries were islands in the Caribean.

How do you 'discover' a land when there are millions of people already living there, anyway?

Answer 5

Columbus arrived in the Caribean islands in 1492, but did not set foot on the mainland in Costa Rica until 1501. But John Cabot, the Italian navigator sailing for England, set foot on the North American mainland in 1497.

Before either of these two fellows, Portuguese fishermen were fishing in the Grand Banks as early as 200 years before Columbus, and it would have been pretty hard for them to miss the giant continent nex to the Grand Banks.

Before them, the Vikings established settlements in Newfoundland around the year 1000 AD, 500 years before Columbus. They did not get along with the previous inhabitants very well and their settlements disappeared eventually.

Before them, St. Brendan from Ireland sailed over to the New World in the 6th century AD, 900 years before Columbus. When he described it in his writings people thought he was talking about some mythical land and not a real place, and they figured that since he was Irish he was probably just drunk anyway, but now we know that he did it.

Before him, peoples who presumably crossed the Bering Land Bridge between Russia and Alaska walked or boated over to the new world sometime between 20 000 and 40 000 years before Columbus, which gave them time to settle the whole continent quite diversely a long time before any Europeans arrived there.

But you could say that Columbus got his timing right in terms of publicity.

Answer 6

Columbus was the first to find it. Yes. But there were people, native Indians already were living. Columbus was looking to go to India but bumped into North America.

Answer 7

It is now well known that Leif Ericson, a Norseman, was the first recorded European to visit America. There is an Irish legend as to Brendan, but it is probably legend only. Leif discovered it about A.D. 1000.

Answer 8

No, he was not the forst explorer. he became first as he published that acheivement in papers, as at that time people dont use to publish their discoverys due ti the fear of leakage

Answer 9

If he was, how did the native americans get there in the first place?

Answer 10

No, there were many before him.
But he was the first to make it publicly known that he found them.