did christopher columbus really discover america?
143787
There were people already living here, so they obviously didn't think "America" was being "discovered."  He did discover it the way you or I might "discover" a new restaurant:  by going there for the first time.
3807
Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451.
123053
Columbus was the first person from Europe to write that the natives would be good for slavery and other forms of exploitation.  \n\nFor the most part, Native Americans don't like columbus.
70184
When Christopher Columbus first found America, he was actually looking for an easier route to the Far East by traveling west instead of east, and didn't know that America existed.  Believing that he was in India, he referred to the Native Americans as Indians.  It stuck.
19546
There were millions of people living in the Americas when Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492. Columbus's voyage to what Europeans called the "New World" set the stage for the later European colonization of the Americas, with millions of emigrants (willing and unwilling) from the "Old World" eventually resettling in the Americas. While the population of Old World peoples in the Americas steadily grew in the centuries after Columbus, the population of the American indigenous peoples plummeted. The extent and causes of this population decline have long been the subject of controversy and debate, which became particularly widespread in 1992 during the 500th anniversary of Columbus's famous voyage, with a number of people claiming that the natives of the Americas have been the victims of genocide.\n\nEstimates of how many people were living in the Americas when Columbus arrived have varied tremendously; in the 20th century scholarly estimates ranged from a low of 8.4 million to a high of 112.5 million persons. Given the fragmentary nature of the evidence, precise pre-Columbian population figures are impossible to obtain; estimates are often produced by extrapolation from comparatively small bits of data. In 1976, geographer William Denevan used various estimates to derive a "consensus count" of about 54 million people, although some recent estimates are lower than that.\n\nHistorian David Henige, representing a minority opinion, has argued that many population figures are the result of arbitrary formulas selectively applied to numbers from unreliable historical sources. He believes there is not enough solid evidence to produce population numbers that have any real meaning, and characterizes the modern trend of high estimates as "pseudo-scientific number-crunching."\n\nThis population debate has often had ideological underpinnings. Low estimates were sometimes reflective of European notions of their own cultural and racial superiority, as historian Francis Jennings has argued: "Scholarly wisdom long held that Indians were so inferior in mind and works that they could not possibly have created or sustained large populations." At the other end of the spectrum, some have argued that contemporary estimates of a high pre-Columbian indigenous population are rooted in a bias against aspects of Western civilization and/or Christianity. Robert Royal writes that "estimates of pre-Columbian population figures have become heavily politicized with scholars who are particularly critical of Europe often favoring wildly higher figures."\n\nSince civilizations rose and fell in the Americas before Columbus arrived, the indigenous population in 1492 was not necessarily at a high point, and may have already been in decline. Indigenous populations in most areas of the Americas reached a nadir by the early twentieth century, and in a number of cases started to climb again.
97825
Good old Wikipedia...\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus
59719
America was not "discovered" since it already inhabitants.
91865
Christopher Columbus was really sailing for India for their spices, silk, and other goods to trade.  When he ran into Hispanola, he thought he had landed in India, and thus he called the people there Indians.
604567
First, the Europeans had known right along about Africa (which was a short hop across the Mediterranean) and about Asia, though their dealings with the Far East (India to China) came rather late, and were a result of contact with Muslims, esp. after the Crusades.\n\nAs for America, the discovers knew NOTHING about America (leaving aside for now the brief settlement from an earlier discovery by people from Iceland --by way of Greenland) when Columbus stumbled into it when trying to get to the Far East more quickly by crossing the Atlantic (rather than trekking by land or sailing around Africa).  This is, of course, why they were "discoverers"!  (Actually, he would have been a discoverer if he had found the route he was looking for rather than a new continent he wasn't looking for.)\n\nIronically, Columbus's critics --who said it was too far and too dangerous-- had a much more accurate estimate of the earth's circumference than he did!   \n\nFurther irony, Columbus never knew that he HAD discovered a new continent.  He died believing he had reached the edge of the "Indies" [hence they are called the West Indies to this day].   It was Amerigo Vespucci who first concluded, while exploring the coast and part of the interior of South America in a 1501-02 voyage, that this was not part of the Far East at all, but a new continent. (The widespread circulation of his letter on this point explains how he became associated with the discovery itself and why mapmakers put a version of HIS name on a map of the "new world" in 1507.)\n\nOne other consideration -- why didn't they sail out to attempt such things earlier?   Because it was only in the 15th century that Europeans (beginning with the Portugese) developed the navigational tools and skills to undertake such voyages.\n\n**Note to mon l -- none of this had ANYTHING to do with "falling off the edge of the earth".  All these folks knew (and the educated had known for many centuries) that the world was round (contra later anti-Catholic propaganda and a blunder in a popular 19th century biography of Columbus that has influenced the popular understanding ever since).  The obstacle the experts --including some fine navigators-- saw was the great DISTANCE to Asia -- and on that point, they were correct!
221251
no one "discovered" america. people just came here a really long time ago. i think the vikings came. and there was also columbus.
961478
His voyages to the Americas began a European effort at exploration and colonization of the continent. While history places great significance on his first voyage of 1492, he did not actually reach the mainland until his third voyage in 1498.
77757
This may sound sick, but maybe a gladiator exhibition at the Coliseum in Rome. Have you seen the movie Gladiator? I also would have loved to be on the first trip to the moon or on Christopher Columbus's first trip to the Americas. It's kind of sad that at this stage in history we think we know everything. I guess there are always other planets and biological discoveries, but somehow those don't equate to discovering the old "new frontier."
1168160
yes, definitely. The New World did need to be discovered.  It was fine on its own.
189886
I remember hearing that when Columbus set out to sail around the world (1492), people thought that the earth was flat and that he would fall off the edge. I have also heard that this is just a myth, people did not really believe that.
122279
Christopher Columbus did not go anywhere to try and be free. He got lost.
1060587
I agree w/ you 100%. Christopher Columbus stole the land from the Native Americans and brought many diseases.\nI don't think we should celebrate Columbus day and that we should write the politicians in Washington about it.
1178995
Ok sweetie, first of all ignore the ignorants, they are partially right but they still don't know how to answer the question. Ok here we go.\n\n Amerigo Vespucci or Américo Vespucio in spanish (see the relationship?) was an italian explorer that in 1501 arrived in what now is Guyana (North of "South" América) he sailed through the Amazona River and ended up in Patagonia (The very south of the American Continent). \n\nAmérico was the first European that realized that this was a new CONTINENT instead of Asia (What they thought at the begining, that's why we call our natives Indians because that was the destination of Columbus). The news spreaded rapidly over Europe and in 1507 a publication of a map made by the German Martin Waldseemüller using the description given by amerigo (Américo) showed the new land name as AMERICUS (In Latin) or América (Spanish because Americo was with the Spanish explorers) in honor of Americo.\n\nThe actual concept of América is the name of what people call North Central and South America which at the end and technically AND CORRECTLY speaking is the name of the whole land that starts in Canada and ends in Argentina. Back then, and, some countries now call americans refering to all people of the new continent (Not only the USA).\n\nNow in the USA, This country was called in honor to that name and also was the first country that became independent from a European authority.\n\nBeing called United States of America means States unified in a land called America which means in some kind of selfish and honorable way that the name of USA is America.\n\nThe only thing I ask you to do is please know and spread the word because there's people that really don't know how they became what they are, and yes, you can and should refer to American or americans to all people in the new continent and the nationality of the USA citizens, but you have to explain when you mean which one. To finish my answer is that everybody that know the difference and knows how to explain it is right and everybody in this WHOLE CONTINENT is an AMERICAN, the north, central and south definitions came after.\n\nThanks for letting me finally explain this to everybody. It took me a long time to figure the why's and the how's (I was born in the USA but raised in Venezuela so it helped expand my mind and knowledge).\n\nTootles