When was discovered america

But there's more. Today, it's widely believed that before the Clovis people, there were others, and as Bawaya says, "they haven't really been identified. We call them, for lack of a better name, the Pre-Clovis people. 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. Perhaps as far back as 20, years or more. But the science on this is far from settled.

So for now, the Clovis and the Pre-Clovis peoples, long disappeared but still existent in the genetic code of nearly all native Americans, deserve the credit for discovering America. But those people arrived on the western coast. What about arrivals from the east? Was Columbus the first European to glimpse the untamed, verdant paradise that America must have been centuries ago?

There is proof that Europeans visited what is now Canada about years before Columbus set sail. 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. 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. 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.

And to add one fascinating wrinkle to the story of America's discover, consider the Sweet Potato. Yes, that's right the sweet potato. This humble pinkish-red tuber is native to South America. And yet, there have been sweet potatoes on the menu in Polynesia as far back as 1, years ago. Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered.

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Related Stories. Already a print subscriber? Go here to link your subscription. Need help? Visit our Help Center. He also began to hatch the plan that would change the world forever.

At the end of the 15th century, it was nearly impossible to reach Asia from Europe by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking to the sea: They sailed south along the West African coast and around the Cape of Good Hope. But Columbus had a different idea: Why not sail west across the Atlantic instead of around the massive African continent?

He argued incorrectly that the circumference of the Earth was much smaller than his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that the journey by boat from Europe to Asia should be not only possible, but comparatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. He presented his plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not until that he found a sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and fortune. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along with the opportunity to export Catholicism to lands across the globe. Columbus, a devout Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about this possibility. On October 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but on one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

In January , leaving several dozen men behind in a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic , he left for Spain. He kept a detailed diary during his first voyage. More troublingly, it also recorded his initial impressions of the local people and his argument for why they should be enslaved. They have no iron …They would make fine servants … With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.

About six months later, in September , Columbus returned to the Americas. Then he headed west to continue his mostly fruitless search for gold and other goods. America was later named for Vespucci. And, as researchers now recognize, neither man was actually the first to discover the Americas.

There were, of course, the natives already here. There was Ericsson. And there were others. Even the Chinese lay claim to sailing to the New World first.