Who discovered America?

Answer 1

Lots of people! The American Indians were here at least 10,000 years, some people think as long as 25,000 years. The Vikings came here in the 10th century. There's evidence that the Chinese came here some time thousands of years ago. And when Columbus made his famous voyage, fishermen from all over Europe had been -nearly- crossing the ocean to fish off the Grand Banks (off Newfoundland) for about a century, and it's not inconceivable some of them might have made land and wondered where they were.

Answer 2

Just because someone was here first doesn't mean it was not discovered (since it was unknown to those explorers) by those who came later. Generally, most native Americans arrived via the Bering Strait Land Bridge during the last ice age, although some evidence suggest that some of the South American peoples came via boat from Polynesia. Leif Erikson discovered America for the Vikings in the 1000's, Admiral Zeng He's Armada possibly discovered America in 1421, and of course Columbus for Western Europe in 1492 (and since a majority of Americans are of Western European descent, Columbus Day is celebrated).

To clear up a couple other very wrong answers (which scares me that history is this poorly taught)....The Americas never touched India when Pangea existed...and even then Pangea was millions of years before humans existed. Native Americans were called Indians because the first Western European explorers thought they arrived in the East Indies in their search for India. Amerigo Vescupi has been given credit as the first Western European to realize that there was land mass between Europe and India, and hence the name America. This is simple, grade school history.

Answer 3

To clarify --I hope!-- it kinda depends on how you mean 'discovered'-- in the strictest sense, yes, Columbus and Vikings and Chinese fleets all 'discovered' America, in the sense that they found something they did not know was there. The fact Indians were living here, having already 'discovered' it before, does not change the fact that it was subsequently 'discovered' by others.

The difference --the critical difference-- with Columbus' discovery of America, is that it is the one that made a difference. For the Vikings it was a remote landfall and minor colony. For the Chinese, it was a note in a logbook. With Columbus, it literally changed the course of history.

And THAT is why Columbus has a day and a parade, and Eric the Red does not.


/Now start the flamewars over Columbus. I'm outta here.

Answer 4

The evidence points pretty firmly towards people coming over from Asia in various ways. No land bridge required, the Inuit and Yupik came over long after the land bridge was under water -- small boats and in the winter you can walk over the ice. The Yupik in Alaska and the Yupik in Siberia never lost touch with each other. The first Europeans were the Vikings/Scandinavians -- followed perhaps by English explorers from Bristol, maybe others in the 15th century, then Columbus.

"check out Ivan Van Sertima's "They Came Before Columbus" for wishful thinking, bad research, and an attempt to steal the native culture's history.
See
http://www.hallofmaat.com/modules.php?name=Articles&file=article&sid=73
Robbing Native American Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs

by Gabriel Haslip-Viera, Bernard Ortiz de Montellano, and Warren Barbour

Also:
http://www.hallofmaat.com/modules.php?name=Articles&file=article&sid=95
Multiculturalism, Cult Archaeology, and Pseudoscience

by Bernard Ortiz De Montellano

Answer 5

History says Spain's explorer Christopher Columbus founded America but science says India was once connected to America. Over thousands of years "America"(not known as that yet) broke away from India and drifted thousands of miles away. So technically Indians(called Native Americans by Christopher Columbus when he came to America) founded America.

Answer 6

The people who got here first. As far as we know at this point, people came from several different areas, by foot and boat, from the East. "Eskimos", as well as other Asian peoples populated the Americas. Once we thought that people came across the land bridge, but we have found that "Native Americans" have many different genes. There is newer scientific proof that several races came over around the same time period. This was thousands of years before Vikings or other Europeans.

Answer 7

Grog of the Cave Bear Clan was dubbed "first discoverer of America" by the elders of the tribe for being the first to cross the Bering Stait Ice Bridge in the year 45,654 BC while chasing some wholly mammoths....

Answer 8

who came to North and South America first? the ancestors of today's Native Americans, of course. following their being cut off from the rest of the world after the disappearance of the Bering land bridge, who then initially made contact with these folks? it sure as heck wasn't Columbus, the slaver. America's first non-Native "discoverers" were ancient, seafaring Africans. check out Ivan Van Sertima's "They Came Before Columbus" for his compelling, scholarly analysis of this matter.

Answer 9

My great ancestor, Lief Ericson (not Eric the Red, his father) landed in the northeast part of Newfoundland, Canada around 984 A.D. The landing site at Lans Aux Meadows has been verified and has been named a UN World Historical Site. though it was the earliest known, it was not a permanent settlement since Lief's brother, Thorvald, was wounded in a skirmish with the natives and they proceeded back to Iceland.

Answer 10

The Native Americans. They were here first. Others may have found it, but it was discovered and inhabited for many, many years before .