Are American high school students still taught that Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas?

Answer 1

No one in Latin America, where Columbus first landed, has ever heard of "Christopher Columbus" because that is NOT the name of the man who discovered America. His name was "Cristobal Colon". American historians like to make it look like Americans discovered everything so they tried to translate Cristobal Colon's name and that's what they came up with. If the musician Jose Feliciano writes a new song, do we first translate his name to "Joe Happiness" or something similar? Do we translate the name of the state of "Nevada" to English and put on the map "Snowfall" because that's what it means in English? No. Case closed.

No, most are taught that the Vikings were technically the first Europeans to step foot on the Americas, and that Asians were the first to arrive as they crossed the ice bridge to what is now Alaska. But they are also taught that Columbus was the first to return home documenting the fact that he had actually been somewhere. Of course, he was mistaken in believing that he had found a route to "the East", believing that he had landed in an island off the coast of India or China, but American students are taught that it was not so simple as "Columbus discovered..."