Christopher the Villian
...to reach what he thought was Asia from the east He achieved it with great success for himself and his country of Spain. Between the evening of Oct. 11, 1492, and the morning of Oct. 12, sailor Juan Rodriguez Bermejo on the Pinta called out, "Land, land!" However, Columbus said that he had seen a flickering light hours earlier and claimed the reward Isabella had offered to the first person to sight land. But the people of the Americas that he so accidentally exposed to the European’s were left in ruins. Since Native Americans were already in America when Columbus landed, they are now recognized as discovering it. What is less known is that the Vikings also predated Columbus' discovery. Thousands of years earlier Nordic explorers had traveled down the eastern coast of Canada, setting up colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland.However, to Columbus' credit, these previous discoveries were so little known that even the best educated Europeans were unaware of the existence of America prior to his travels. Therefore, Columbus' voyages did mark Europe's...