who discovered america first

Up until the 1970s, these first Americans had a name: the Clovis peoples. America is a continent. This map of the ancient Bering Land Bridge suggests otherwise. More importantly, there are ancient texts that refer to various explorers who reached America from Europe (and possibly China) before Columbus. Wikimedia Commons“The Landings of Vikings on America” by Arthur C. Michael. And to make things more complicated, recent discoveries are threatening to push back the arrival of humans in North America even further back in time. However, this theory remains controversial. Several theoretical contacts have been proposed, but the earliest physical evidence comes from the Norse or Vikings. There was limited contact between North American people and the outside world before 1492. Before heading back to Spain, he kidnapped 10 Indigenous people so he could train them as interpreters and exhibit them at the royal court. Once here, humans dispersed all across North and eventually Central and South America. One saga claims that Erikson sailed off course while he was returning to Greenland and happened upon North America by accident. Abu Raihan al-Biruni, an Islamic scholar from Central Asia, may have discovered the New World centuries before Columbus – without leaving his study. Learn more about who discovered America -in a nutshell. Columbus then set sail for several other islands, including Cuba and Hispaniola, which today is known as Haiti and the Dominican Republic. So when was America discovered — and who actually found it first? Countless Native people died from European diseases such as smallpox and measles, to which they had no immunity. However, they too had to discover America at some point. What about arrivals from the east? The most serious is the idea that the Americas were in any sense undiscovered when they were, in fact, already occupied. Born in Iceland around 970 A.D., Erikson likely grew up in Greenland before sailing east to Norway when he was around 30 years old. Theories About Who Really Discovered America Saint Brendan. His father Erik the Red had founded the first European settlement on what is now called Greenland in 980 A.D. Wikimedia Commons“Leif Erikson Discovers America” by Hans Dahl (1849-1937). It was here that King Olaf I Tryggvason converted him to Christianity, and inspired him to spread the faith to Greenland’s pagan settlers. “The Return of Christopher Columbus” by Eugene Delacroix. Americans get a day off work on October 12 to celebrate Columbus Day. While many schoolchildren are taught that Christopher Columbus was responsible for the discovery of America in 1492, the true history of the land’s exploration stretches back long before Columbus was even born. Of course, this would provide ample time for curious humans to explore. The name of the first European to sight North America has been largely forgotten. It's also safe to say that he paved the way for the massive influx of western Europeans that would ultimately form several new nations including the United States, Canada and Mexico. However, one cannot say for sure that Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci were the first to discover this huge continent. And people have been coming here ever since, chasing a better life, abundant food, water and opportunity. So some states have opted to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead, urging us to reassess the very idea of the “discovery” of America. S.Frederick Starr | Published in History Today Volume 63 Issue 12 December 2013 The question of who discovered America is a difficult one to answer. Wikimedia CommonsErikson’s recreated colonization site at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. And yet, many people still ask, “Did Christopher Columbus discover America?” While it appears Erikson had him beat, the Italians accomplished something the Vikings could not: They opened a pathway from the Old World to the New. Marco Margaritoff is a Staff Writer at All That's Interesting. There’s even a popular legend about a band of Irish monks who made it to America in the sixth century. We call them, for lack of a better name, the Pre-Clovis people. Martin Waldseemuller was the first to name this huge land mass as America. who discovered America. Who Discovered the America First? When exactly these people crossed over remains unknown. After learning the true history of who discovered America, read about the study suggesting humans arrived in North America 16,000 years ago. Archaeologists Just Unearthed The 8,400-Year-Old Remains Of A Man And His Dog, Inside The Erfurt Latrine Disaster Of 1184, When 60 Nobles Drowned In Excrement, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. He puts the Chinese in the U.S. state of Arizona sometime around 1300 BC. Most may not ask who discovered America since it has been drilled to us since preschool but it is still to important to learn more about the man who discovered America, as he not only discovered America, he discovered a New World and with it, opened new possibilities that had tremendous impact on the course of human history. On top of that, the settlers often forced the islanders into labor in the fields, and if they resisted they would either be killed or sent to Spain as slaves. Meanwhile, archeological evidence has shown that humans reached the Yukon at least 14,000 years ago. Aside from Erikson reaching the continent before Columbus, there are additional theories regarding other groups who did as well. He died just two years later — still incorrectly believing that he’d found a new way to Asia. In the year 1497, he reached Newfoundland. They were eager to have a Catholic hero celebrated in regard to America’s founding. DNA suggests they are the direct ancestors of about 80 percent of Indigenous people throughout the Americas. So who were the brave explorers who first discovered America, and how did they get here? Fifteen-thousand years ago, ocean levels were much lower and the land between the continents was hundreds of kilometers wide. Erik the Red founded a colony on Greenland in 985 CE. It was not Leif Eriksson, whose fame was largely secured by his expeditions to the continent, nor was it Erik the Red (who indeed never went there). And yet, there have been sweet potatoes on the menu in Polynesia as far back as 1,000 years ago. While these tales from the Middle Ages might appear mythical, archaeologists actually uncovered tangible evidence supporting these sagas. Anderson’s account detailed “the first expedition to New England” in the year 1000 and described Leif Erikson as “the first pale-faced man” and … This ancient American culture has been labeled the first civilization of the western hemisphere, as they surpassed their neighbors in an attempt to settle certain problems of living together — of government, defense, religion, family, … Some people believed that he discovered North America in around 1000 AD, which was nearly 500 years earlier than Columbus. Either way, it suggests that about the same time Nordic sailors were cutting trees in Canada, someone in Polynesia was trying sweet potatoes from South America for the first time. Did Christopher Columbus discover America? Ultimately, the most accurate answer lies with the Indigenous people — as they walked on the land thousands of years before Europeans even knew it existed. Did Christopher Columbus discover America? The prehistory of the Americas (North, South, and Central America, and the Caribbean) begins with people migrating to these areas from Asia during the height of an Ice Age. Not only were the remains clearly of Norse origin, they were also dated back to Erikson’s lifetime thanks to radiocarbon analysis. By 1502, the Florentine merchant and explorer Amerigo Vespucci had figured out that Columbus was wrong, and word of a New World had spread throughout Europe. Half a millennium before Columbus “discovered” America, those Viking feet may have been the first European ones to ever have touched North American soil. And to add one fascinating wrinkle to the story of America's discover, consider the Sweet Potato. In 1937, an influential Catholic group known as the Knights of Columbus successfully lobbied both Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt to honor Christopher Columbus with a national holiday. Neither. Speaking of genetics, a 2014 study of the DNA of natives on the Polynesian island of Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, found a fair amount of Native American genes in the mix. The Chinese claim that they discovered America long before the voyages … “Leif Erikson Discovers America” by Hans Dahl (1849-1937). 3 days ago. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site and consists of the remains of eight buildings that were likely wooden structures covered with grass and soil. 1847. “The Landings of Vikings on America” by Arthur C. Michael. It is believed that Christopher Columbus discovered America on 3 August 1492. But despite its relative inhospitality, life abounded there. Then, learn about another study claiming humans lived in North America 115,000 years earlier than we thought. The arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas in 1492 has been described by many historians as the beginning of the Colonial Period. The only Norse site outside of Greenland yet discovered in North America is at L'Anse aux Mea… But there are remants of them in places as far-flung as the U.S. states of Texas and Virginia, and as far south as Peru and Chile. Birds, fish, and marine mammals established migration patterns that continue to this day.". One school of thought among archaeologists is that they were big-game hunters who trekked on foot across a vast land bridge that connected Siberia and Alaska during the last Ice Age and then headed farther south some 13,000 years ago. The news came during a hopeful time on the largest … They're thoroughly discredited, so we'll leave it at that. He told VOA that they came here from Asia probably "no later than about 15,000 years ago." And neither was the first known European. While modern-day criticism of Columbus Day is largely rooted in the man’s horrendous treatment of the Indigenous populations he encountered, it has also served as a conversation starter for people unaware of America’s history. Generally, when the topic of discovery comes up or if we talk about who discovered America first, the first name that comes in everyone’s mind, undoubtedly is Christopher Columbus.While there is no doubt about Columbus paving the way for the discovery of America, it is quite a misnomer to label him as the “first discoverer.” In fact, the entirety of North and South America are a polyglot of cultures stretching back before recorded history. But those people arrived on the western coast. Throughout these expeditions, European settlers stole from the Indigenous people, abducted their wives, and seized them as captives to be taken to Spain. America comprises of the two continents of the western hemisphere, namely North America and South America. Well, here at VOA, we are trying to tell the story of America. But recent Discoveries suggests that Viking may be the first to discover the great lands of America. However, this holiday has become increasingly scrutinized in recent years — especially due to Columbus’ cruelty toward Indigenous people he encountered in the Americas. Known as the Bering Land Bridge, it’s now submerged underwater but it lasted from about 30,000 years ago to 16,000 years ago. There is a dialogue between Alexander the Great and someone called Diogenis of Sinope (Διογένης ο Σινωπεύς) Alexander once approached a wise man who lived inside a jar. But shortly thereafter, Erikson instead arrived in America around 1000 A.D. He discovered the North America. Leif Erikson: The Viking Who Found America. So how did it get there? Historian Charles C. Mann, author of 1491, explained it as such: “From southern Maine down to about the Carolinas, you would have seen pretty much the entire coastline lined with farms, cleared land, interior for many miles and densely populated villages generally rounded with wooden walls.”, He continued, “And then in the Southeast, you would have seen these priestly chiefdoms, which were centered on these large mounds, thousands and thousands of them, which still exist. Ancient documents dictate that the Vikings, more specifically a Viking called Lief Erikson, actually discovered America first. With the national holiday gaining traction in the decades since then, Leif Erikson Day arguably never had a chance to compete. There were people in America before Columbus. Christopher is credited with discovering the Americas in 1492 Americans get a day off work on October 12 to celebrate Columbus Day. Contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence that Columbus ever set foot on mainland North America. The first African clay masks, pyramids, mummies, trepannated skulls, stelae and hieroglyphs found in America were also from this era. We mention these two only because we have seen them pop up in newspaper articles recently. It was Vespucci who put forth the then-radical idea that Columbus landed on a different continent that was completely separate from Asia. The landing of Christopher Columbus in 1492. For a long time, most people believed that Christopher Columbus was the first explorer to "discover" America—the first to make a successful round-trip voyage across the Atlantic. After all, in the tale itself, St. Barinthus had first set foot in the distant land. Whilst it was generally believed that Columbus was the first European to discover America in 1492, it is now well known that Viking explorers reached parts of the east coast of Canada around 1100 and that Icelandic Leif Erikson’s Vinland may have been an area that is now part of the United States. Until recently we might think that we know the answer: Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492, who sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and reached in the new land of America in 1492. And what did America look like just before Columbus arrived? Intent on going there, Erikson raised a crew of 35 men and set sail. And then as you went further down, you would have come across what is often called the Aztec empire… which was a very aggressive, expansionistic empire that had one of the world’s largest cities as its capital, Tenutchtitlan, which is now Mexico City.”. Did the Vikings? But the science on this is far from settled. The history of Leif Erikson’s discovery of America. It has been a national holiday in the United States since 1937. Another theory from a retired chemist named John Ruskamp suggests that pictographs discovered in Arizona are nearly identical to Chinese characters. According to the U.S. National Park Service, "the land bridge played a vital role in the spread of plant and animal life between the continents. While founding myths suggest that the land was sparsely populated by nomadic tribes living lightly on the land, research over the past few decades has shown that many early Americans lived in complex, highly organized societies. “Landing of Columbus” by John Vanderlyn. Nonetheless, Columbus remains one of the most well known explorers of his time — and he’s still celebrated every year on Columbus Day. In 1964, US president Lyndon Johnson proclaimed October 9 to be the Leif Erikson Day, in memory of this European explorer who first set foot on North America continent in the history. His father Erik the Red had founded the first European settlement on what is now called Greenland in 980 A.D. Wikimedia Commons “Leif Erikson Discovers America” by Hans Dahl (1849-1937). From pre-Columbus America and Erikson’s settlement to varying other theories and modern-day debates, it’s high time to do some exploring of our own. In fourteen hundred and ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue. As for Columbus, he was plagued with ship trouble during his final trip back to Spain and was marooned in Jamaica for a year before he was rescued in 1504. Yet another controversial claim has sixth-century Irish monk St. Brendan finding the land around 500 A.D. According to local legend, Saint Brendan was an Irish monk that lived sometime in the 6th century. America was first discovered by the Ancient Hellenes (Greeks)! When Europeans arrived in the New World, they almost immediately noticed other people who already made a home there. Archeologists hope finds from their battlefield excavations increase interest in and support for local preservation, It is nearly impossible to imagine that day in 79 AD when the eruption of Mount Vesuvius destroyed the Roman city of Pompeii. They were Vikings, and evidence of their presence can be found on the Canadian island of Newfoundland at a place called l'Anse Aux Meadows. This man, Diogenis, met with Alexander quite a few times. Wikimedia Commons“Landing of Columbus” by John Vanderlyn. Instructed to continue his work, Columbus returned to the Western Hemisphere across three more voyages until the early 1500s. Perhaps as far back as 20,000 years or more. Wikimedia CommonsDid Christopher Columbus discover America? Are you sure you know the answer to this question? claimed that a Chinese fleet helmed by Admiral Zheng He, the study suggesting humans arrived in North America 16,000 years ago, another study claiming humans lived in North America 115,000 years earlier than we thought. The Olmec were an early people of Mesoamerica who settled the Mexican Gulf Coast. They get their name from an ancient settlement discovered near Clovis, New Mexico, dated to over 11,000 years ago. VOA asked Michael Bawaya, the editor of the magazine American Archaeology. Some unknown Siberian was the first person to reach America, many thousands of years before either. Discovering the Americas, put it: “[Columbus] wasn’t the first and neither were the Vikings — that is a very Euro-centric view. Ruth GotthardtArchaeologist Jacques Cinq-Mars at the Bluefish Caves in the Yukon in the 1970s. Leif Erikson, the son of Erik the Red, was a Norse explorer from Iceland — a Viking. 1839. It would be more accurate, perhaps, to say that he introduced the Americas to Western Europe during his four voyages to the region between 1492 and 1502. Perhaps most famously, a group of Icelandic Norse explorers led by Leif Erikson likely beat Columbus to the punch by around 500 years. 1919. But to say he "discovered" America is a bit of a misnomer because there were plenty of people already here when he arrived. The Landing of Columbus, October 11, 1492, painting by Currier & Ives, 1846. Modern research has suggested that wasn’t even the case. So who were the people who really deserve to be called the first Americans? For a very long time, everyone assumed that Columbus had first discovered America. But of course, the Americas would look very different after Columbus arrived. Was Columbus the first European to glimpse the untamed, verdant paradise that America must have been centuries ago? Yet in recent years, the very term "discovery" has come under fire. Sebastian Munster's map, published in 1540, the first to show America as a continent. And archaeologists say that humans followed, in a never-ending hunt for food, water and shelter. Even today, many people still believe that Christopher Columbus was the person who “discovered” America when he landed there in 1492. However, genetic studies have shown that the first humans to cross became genetically isolated from people in Asia about 25,000 to 20,000 years ago. Known for establishing churches in Britain and Ireland, he purportedly set out on a journey in a primitive ship to North America — with only a Latin book from the ninth century supporting the claim. Who Discovered America First. Many species of animals - the woolly mammoth, mastodon, scimitar cat, Arctic camel, brown bear, moose, muskox, and horse — to name a few — moved from one continent to the other across the Bering land bridge. 1839. It's not quite clear if the area was a permanent settlement, but it is clear that the expansion-minded Norsemen were here long before Columbus. There are other theories out there. It was rather Historian Kenneth C. Davis on replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. 1919. There is proof that Europeans visited what is now Canada about 500 years before Columbus set sail. But either way, it’s clear that plenty of people got there thousands of years before Columbus. Up until the 1970s, the first Americans were believed to be the Clovis people — who got their names from an 11,000-year-old settlement found near Clovis, New Mexico. There were millions of people here already, and so their ancestors must have been the first.”. Historian Gavin Menzies has claimed that a Chinese fleet helmed by Admiral Zheng He reached the Americas in 1421, using a Chinese map allegedly from 1418 as his evidence. So even though evidence suggests that they weren’t the first, some scholars still believe these people deserve credit for the discovery of America — or at least the part we now know as the United States. Today, it's widely believed that before the Clovis people, there were others, and as Bawaya says, "they haven't really been identified." The Real History Of Who ‘Discovered’ America That Goes Much Deeper Than Christopher Columbus. However, what is less certain is who really discovered America first? Christopher Columbus and Leif Eriksson are the most credible candidates to have been the first people to sail and land in the Americas, there are other myths that pose contenders to that title. John Vanderlyn 1847, public domain. The first reported celebration of Christopher Columbus’s arrival took place in the United States in 1792. When Columbus returned from the Antilles in 1493, he was not the first European to have stepped in the New World. But as Russell Freedom, author of Who Was First? And DNA suggests they are the direct ancestors of nearly 80 percent of all indigenous people in the Americas. Wikimedia Commons“The Return of Christopher Columbus” by Eugene Delacroix. As the amount of Spanish colonists increased, the Indigenous populations across the islands decreased. As such, it isn’t just the man’s character being reassessed, but also his actual accomplishments — or lack thereof. The volcano buried the city and thousands of its inhabitants under a four-to-six-meter blanket of embalming ash that preserved Pompeii until its rediscovery in the late 1500s.Pompeii is now a, Battlefield Archaeologists Find Oregon Indian War Anything But Ancient History, Digital Archaeology Walks Viewers Through Pompeii, Experience Vies with Influence as US Fills Ambassador Slots, Weather Disrupts US COVID Vaccine Delivery, Garland Says Laws Must be ‘Fairly and Faithfully Enforced’, US Deports Former Nazi Concentration Camp Guard to Germany, Sheriff: 3 Dead in Gun Store Shooting in New Orleans Suburb. From a civil liberties point of view, the claim that Christopher Columbus discovered America contains several problematic implications. Who discovered America? Nor would discovery of such artifacts prove that St. Brendan was the first Irishman in North America. One of them died at sea. Throughout the years, scholars have theorized that people from Asia, Africa, and even Ice Age Europe may have reached American shores before him. It's an annual holiday that commemorates the day on October 12, 1492, when the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus officially set foot in the Americas, and claimed the land for Spain. Exploration was a … Leif Erikson, a Norse explorer from Iceland, had adventuring in his blood. So, Who Did Discover America? Learn more about who discovered America -in a nutshell. But there's more. Erik the Red founded the first Norse settlement in Greenland. The area would have looked much like the land on Alaska's Seward Peninsula does today: treeless, arid tundra. These groups are generally believed to have been isolated from the people of the "Old World" until the coming of Europeans in the 10th century from Iceland led by Leif Erikson and in 1492 with the voyages of Christopher Columbus. However, carbon dating in Yukon’s Bluefish Caves has suggested that humans could have even been living there 24,000 years ago. But another saga holds that his discovery of the land was intentional — and that he heard about it from another Icelandic trader who spotted it but never set foot on the shores. And what is clear is that America was a melting pot hundreds of years before the Statue of Liberty began urging the world, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.". Nonetheless, the Americas had been home to Indigenous people for millennia before either of them had ever been born — with even other groups of Europeans preceding Columbus. Still confident he had discovered islands in Asia, Columbus built a small fort on Hispaniola and left 39 men behind to collect gold samples and await the next Spanish expedition. Today the area is barren, but a thousand years ago there were trees everywhere and the area likely was used as winter stopover point, where Vikings repaired their boats and sat out bad weather. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Erikson was the first explorer who discovered America. 1847. Yes, that's right the sweet potato. Perhaps this is why America itself wasn’t named after Columbus and instead a Florentine explorer named Amerigo Vespucci. Image credit: Everett Collection/Shutterstock.com. Archaeologist Jacques Cinq-Mars at the Bluefish Caves in the Yukon in the 1970s. The Vikings. Leif Erikson, a Norse explorer from Iceland, had adventuring in his blood. But these theories about the discovery of America are far from settled. It appears to stake China's claim to have "discovered" America first. Declared in 1964 by President Lyndon Johnson to fall on October 9th each year, it aims to honor the Viking explorer and the Norse roots of America’s population. Really Christopher Columbus discovered America first? Ask the average person who was the first person to discover America and most would say Christopher Columbus. A retired British Naval officer named Gavin Menzies has been pushing the idea that the Chinese colonized South America in 1421.

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