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How Did Christopher Columbus Founded America First

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Is it true that Leif Eriksson founded America 500 years before Columbus did? Christopher Columbus “founded” America in 1492, but was he really the first? There has been much controversy on who discovered America first. For many the answer to the question is easy: Christopher Columbus, because that is what we were taught growing up, but for some, the answer is not as easy to answer. Some believe that Leif Eriksson and the Vikings arrived in North America 500 years before Columbus did.

Christopher Columbus was an explorer and a navigator, born in 1451. He became an experienced seafarer as he grew up. His farthest journeys into the Atlantic were only as far as Iceland and West Africa. He began to think the world was round because of his trips, …show more content…
Historians researched beyond their already extended knowledge and later found their beliefs correct. According to the Newfoundland Museum, “Several Norse Viking pieces and clear Icelandic- style house foundations gave proof positive that Vikings had indeed landed, and briefly settled, in North America 500 years before Columbus. More recent archaeological work has revealed over 300 years of sporadic contact between the Greenlandic Norse and various Indian, Inuit, and other Native American peoples, concentrated primarily in the Canadian Arctic.” This goes to show that many historians went out on a limb and found evidence proving that Columbus was not the first European to discover the …show more content…
"Who really discovered America?" DAWN.COM. October 11, 2014. Accessed
April 02, 2017. https://www.dawn.com/news/1137098.

"Christopher Columbus." Biography.com. November 16, 2016. Accessed March 31, 2017. http://www.biography.com/people/christopher-columbus-9254209. "Christopher Columbus Discovers America, 1492." Christopher Columbus Discovers America, 1492.
2004. Accessed April 02, 2017. http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/columbus.htm.

Foster, Patrick. "New satellite images reveal fresh evidence that Vikings settled in North America."
The Telegraph. March 31, 2016. Accessed April 04, 2017. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/31/how-vikings-made-the-new-world-their-own/. History.com Staff. "Leif Eriksson." History.com. 2010. Accessed April 02, 2017. http://www.history.com/topics/exploration/leif-eriksson. "Leif Eriksson." Biography.com. May 05, 2016. Accessed March 31, 2017. http://www.biography.com/people/leif-eriksson-9378184. Loewen, James W. Lies my teacher told me: everything your American history textbook got wrong. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 39.

"Vikings." Vikings. Accessed April 04, 2017.

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