Was Columbus the first to discover the Americas?

Answer 1

No. Columbus gets the credit, but there are numerous people who claim to have discovered the Americas beforehand.

Lief Erickson was a viking explorer who landed in North America circa the year 1002-3. Before that, things get a bit sketchy.

According to the Norwegian sailor and anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl, a group of Egyptian sailors crossed the Atlantic and landed in Central America and taught the locals to build pyramids. This would have had to have happened at some point before 2000 BCE, but since there are no records this remains only plausible.

Certainly, the original inhabitants of the Americas discovered it around 10,000 BCE, but they weren't good with the record keeping either.

In 100 BCE, The Greek Historian Diodorus reported that the Carthaginians, from the city of Carthage on the north coast of Africa, had knowledge of a "large island" far out in the Atlantic that they had discovered by accident when one of their ships was blown off course during a storm.

There are numerous other examples of people who have claimed discovery of the Americas before Columbus. So, no, he was not the first.

Answer 2

no