Discovery of the Americas

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The discovery of the Americas is variously attributed to the following people, depending on context and definition:

• Indigenous peoples of the Americas, the first people to live in the Americas (see Paleo-Indians, Clovis Culture, Models of migration to the New World, Solutrean hypothesis, Pre-Siberian American Aborigines);
• Vikings (see Norse colonization of the Americas, Vinland) such as:
  • Gunnbjörn Ulfsson, who first sighted islands off Greenland, probably in the early 900s
  • Bjarni Herjólfsson, who sighted mainland North America (Labrador, Canada) around 986
  • Leif Eriksson, a Norsemen born in Iceland, said to have landed in North America (Newfoundland, Canada) around 1005.
• Christopher Columbus, leader of the first verified Old World expedition since the Vikings;
• Various unproven voyagers including:
  • Saint Brendan
  • Zheng He
  • Prince Madoc
  • Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney
  • Many others (see Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact)
• other European explorers during the "Age of Discovery" (see European colonization of the Americas).

[edit] See also

• History of the Americas