Christopher Columbus
...lementary school that Christopher Columbus did discover America. Is that really true, or can it be proven wrong? After the fall of Rome around the year 500, tribal communities all around Europe were moving around looking for new land to conquer. In the northern part of Europe, above Germania, the Nordic tribal community was spreading all over what is now Sweden, Denmark, Greenland, and even Iceland. In the year 986, an Icelandic trader by the name of Bjarni Herjulfsson was trying to return to Greenland when a storm pushed him close to either the coast of Newfoundland or Maine. On immediate return to Greenland he informed his leaders that a land with dense forest rests just to the west. To some historians, Herjulfsson is the first European to see the continent of North America. The Vikings led by Lief Erickson set up an expedition in search of this new land. Erickson’s voyage led him as far as Newfoundland, Canada. This was 450 years before Columbus was even born. In 1964 Lyndon B. Johnson and Congress agreed to name October 9th, “Leif Erickson Day”, in commemoration of the first European to set foot in North America (Ryne). In 1492, Columbus was commissioned by the Queen of Spain to set sail to the west in search of a quicker trade route to Asia. Columbus and his three ships landed on an island in the Bahamas, which he named San Salvador. The native islanders referred to the island as Guanahani. The only time Columbus reached a mainland was in his fourth and final voyage when he arrived in what is known today as Panama, on the Sou...