Columbus was a lost Italian sailor.
He had a Viking map.
The Vikings probably got all the way to Minnesota.
When one considers that one can travel from Britain to the Shetlands, to Iceland to Greenland in aprox. 300 mile spurts the Atlantic crossing doesn't seem so daunting.
Most tales of previous crossings, the Carthaginians, Madoc, the Knights Templar, are crap.
Some Eurasian people undoubtedly reached the Pacific coast.
The most important impact of his discovery of the New World was the blow struck against the Medieval mindset which placed the earth at the center of the universe and Jerusalem at the center of the earth. With the discovery of the New World Jerusalem was no longer in the center of the earth.
In North American in 1492 there was as few as two million, and as many as 19 million people.
There are about five million Native Americans (including mixed) in the United States today.
There are about 1.5 million aboriginal people living in Canada today.
The author assumes no responsibility for indigenous peoples south of the Rio Grande.
God bless Hernan Cortez.
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