Was it really Christopher Columbus who discovered the New World?
I hadn’t heard of the Cabot connection. It always seemed strange to me that people thought America was named after Americo Vespucci (or Bespucio) as in those days noone would name something except after a surname. I had heard that the Manichean Christians called a paradise land in the west La Merica, meaning star of the west. Some people also think the Knights Templars got there before Columbus – there is a strange tower on Rhode Island and a rock drawing of a knight. Also in the book Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, the author argues that Columbus definitely had a map – there definitely were maps showing the west coast of America noone had apparently visited.
