Was an Irish monk the first European to reach America?
Christopher Columbus gets the lion’s share of the credit for discovering America in 1492, but the evidence weighs heavily against him being the first one to find the New World. If Columbus had actually discovered America, he’d have found an unpopulated terrain, and of course, he didn’t. Anthropologists and archaeologists estimate that between 40 and 100 million Native Americans lived in the Americas when Columbus arrived, accounting for as much as one-fifth of the global population at the time [source: Mann]. Besides, some believe the Chinese beat Columbus by 80 years. While Columbus may have been the first European to reach
Christopher Columbus gets the lion’s share of the credit for discovering America in 1492, but the evidence weighs heavily against him being the first one to find the New World. If Columbus had actually discovered America, he’d have found an unpopulated terrain, and of course, he didn’t. Anthropologists and archaeologists estimate that between 40 and 100 million Native Americans lived in the Americas when Columbus arrived, accounting for as much as one-fifth of the global population at the time [source: Mann]. Besides, some believe the Chinese beat Columbus by 80 years. While Columbus may have been the first European to reach
