Why do you think many people give Christopher Columbus credit for discovering america?

Answer 1

Being an excellent sailor he kept a ships log. Brought it back to Spain giving precise intructions on how to duplicate his trip. If you invent a cure for cancer and tell no one, write nothing down, then someone else will get the credit. There are numerous claims for others, as with St Brendan in his leather boat. But the first to bring back proof and a log got the credit.

Answer 2

I believe ol' Chris had one heck of a pr team. Spain is struggling, so think of it, he discovers a new land....helps Spain alot doesn't it? But there is proof that Celtic people and Vikings where here long before Columbus. They have also found that Chinese mariners had sailed to the West coast of America long before him as well. So Christopher Columbus didn't discover America, he just knew how to write about it in a language everyone could understand. People are still learning how to read Ogham script so the stones they have found all across America with Celtic inscriptions on them are being dismissed as false, no matter what the carbon dating states on them. I believe Columbus day should not be recognized here in the States, since anyhow, Columbus never stepped foot on the American continent's proper. He stepped foot on some islands in the Caribbean, so I guess you should say he discovered a great vacation spot. But until historians and intellectuals quit fooling themselves, Chris is still going to be the one that is considered to having discovered the Americas.

Answer 3

The majority accept Christopher Columbus as the discoverer of the New World. His arrival in the New World is so well documented that it makes it much more acceptable than the previous claimants who may have arrived in antiquity but who's arrival there is undocumented.

It is well known that the Vikings made it as far west is Newfoundland in Canada and the remains of their settlement[s] are still there. But there are no documents to back this up and in any case, the site could have been built in the 16th century and not the 10th century. There's just no way of proving one way or the other.

As for certain gentlemen from Ireland arriving there centuries before Columbus. Again, no documentary proof.

So, because of the documentation, lots of witnesses and proof beyond a shadow of a doubt, Christopher Columbus is guilty as charged of discovering the New World.

The earliest European settlers in the New World are believed to have come from southern Europe around the end of the last Ice Age of 12,000 years ago. Stone tools have been found in North America which match exactly those found in southern Europe and probably made at around the same time, about 10,000 - 12,000 years ago.

Did 'Old World early Paleolithic' people travel to North America?(Interestingly, the stone tools are usually illustrated with artistic .... Since the ‘tools’ found in Alberta are similar to other ‘tools’ found in Europe, ...
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i3/paleolithic.asp

NOVA | Transcripts | America's Stone Age Explorers | PBSNARRATOR: Asia and North America were essentially one great continent, joined by a land ..... Shoberg examines other types of tools found at the site. ...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3116_stoneage.html

There is one thing for sure and that is that until the Spanish arrived in the Americas, the horse did not exist there. The word Mustang - semi-wild horse, comes from Spanish.

Mustang (horse) - Wikipedia, A Mustang is a free-roaming feral horse of the North American west. It first descended from horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish. ...
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustang_(horse)

Mustang (horse) - Wikipedia, The English word "mustang" comes from the Mexican Spanish word mestengo, derived from Spanish mesteño, meaning "stray" or "feral animal". The Spanish word ...
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustang_(horse)

Answer 4

It's not so much now a days that Columbus is giving credit for 'discovering' America but more so that his voyage is what brought 'national attention' from Europe to the Western Hemisphere.

People gave him credit for 'discovering' America because it was the easy answer.

Answer 5

This idea started in New York City, where there was a huge Italian population, so they celebrated Columbus discovering America. Good question because actually Columbus was one of the later explorers to come this way, and he never even made it to North America! Yet this myth persists and is perpetuated every year when we celebrate Columbus day.

There were Viking and probably Irish explorers who made it to Canada and the upper Northeast US, and Canada considers Prince Henry Sinclair of Scotland as the person who "discovered" that country, landing in Nova Scotia 100 years before Columbus set sail.

Answer 6

The Russians walked across the Bering Straight down through Canada to USA. They stayed, settled and changed their immigrantion status Native Americans. They didn't send word back home of their discovery because they didn't want the riffraff moving in.

The Vikings were tourists. They landed in Newport, had a picnic, built a tower and returned home. Along the way, they lost the map or weren't interested because the nouveau riche hadn't yet discovered it making it popular.

Christopher Columbus had to SELL the New World to the King and Queen of Spain to justify the expense. They in turn had to sell it to the known world so they wouldn't look foolish.

-----
Hey! Clive!

You couldn't accept my words? NOOOO! You tried to go and cloud the whole thang with FACTS!! Well, don't need no facts. I'm a descendant of Eric the Red. He passed the the incident down through the family.
'-)
-----

Answer 7

chris had a talent for pr and a great publicist. the printing press was already invented and word got around. it was hundreds of years before folks knew about lief erickson and others, including the chinese new evidence shows the mayans of south american were trading with egypt long before all that. so you might say, it is better to be lucky than good.

chris had all the luck until his unfortunate death. i believe the indians he found zapped him on one the returns trips.

i not so sure if was important. it was bound to happen before much longer. the shipbuilders were getting more an more sophisticated as well and navigation techniques. much ado about nothing methinks.

think about all the mayan pyriminds like in egypt. and they recently discovered some cocaine leaves that only grow in south america. other evidence, too. they think they made the voyages in big reed boats. pretty heady stuff huh?

Answer 8

I thought "Christopher Columbus" was a swear word

Answer 9

Because then do not know what the chinese did in 1421. No one knows the chinese discovered most of the other countries and that Columbus was using a chinese map when he sailed for the east, or magelan also had a chinese map or access to one befor he salied.. The chinese also were sailing to australia in about 600.

Answer 10

You read to the history of the life of Christopher Columbus and you will know it…