Did Christopher Columbus Discover America?

In this instance, "discovered" is probably not the correct word. Certainly Columbus put America on the proverbial map. It was his journey that spurred many to follow him and eventually led to the settling of this "new world" in the early 17^th century by Europeans. However, when Columbus landed, there were already natives inhabiting the land, named Indians (later Native Americans) as Columbus initially thought he had reached India. These people would certainly take exception to their land being "discovered" as they were obviously aware of it prior to Columbus’ arrival.
Additionally, there were a group of Nordic explorers who attempted (but ultimately failed) to settle in Greenland during the Middle Ages long before Columbus was even born. To that end, there was also Leif Ericson, the Norse explorer who is believed to have led a settlement in what was then known as Vinland (which is now believed to be located at the northern tip of Newfoundland, Canada) around the turn of the eleventh century.
While it is clear Columbus was not the first to inhabit the Americas, he certainly opened the door for the mass settlements that were to come. For small school children it is easy to explain that "Christopher Columbus discovered America" as this is the type of simplistic idea they can grasp, but for those capable of understanding the bigger picture, the actual truth is much more gray than black and white.

In 1492 Columbus and his three ships reached an island in the Bahamas. Since he believed he was approaching India, he called the Islands he found "The  Indies" and their inhabitants Indians. He then found Cuba and what (thanks to his error) are now called the West Indies. In later voyages he reached the mouth of the Orinoco River, in what is now called northern Venezuela, but still didn't realise that he was on the edge of a new continent.

By the time Columbus died in 1506, others had already started exploring the new continent, especially Amerigo Vespucci, who sailed down the eastern coast of South America in 1502, and after whom the continent was later named.

Of course, people had already been living in the Americas for hundreds, if not thousands of years before Columbus and his successors went there, so "discover" isn't exactly the road. However, they were certainly the first Europeans in that part of the world, unless you count the Nordic settlers who tried and failed to establish a colony in Greenland in the Middle Ages.

Christopher Columbus didn't discover America - it was there all the time.

Joking apart, he was not the first European to reach North America. There is plenty of archaeological and other evidence to support the idea that it was the Vikings that were the first Europeans to set foot on the continent of North America. The mythical Vineland of the Norse sagas is now accepted to mean North America.

However, there is another theory that it was a Welsh saint that first made landfall more by accident than design. This explains why early settlers bumped into Native Americans who could speak Welsh!

Paleontologists, meanwhile, assert that the original Americans came from the East, crossing a land bridge that once existed in what is now the Bering Strait. This places the original 'discoverers' of the North American continent several tens of thousands of years before Christopher Columbus.

Incidentally, Columbus is generally thought to have been working from a map that was brought to Genoa from the Middle East. So the short answer is that Christopher Columbus didn't discover America, but no-one is 100 per cent sure who actually did so.

How can you discover something,that already exists.The native americans were already here.use the correct term when explaining who discovered America or who was here first.stop the lies,thats one of many reasons that some people don't take the time and search for the truth about real amerikan history.you would be surprised at the atrocities this country has committed in getting control of the so called new world.to you historians,stop confusing this generation with lies,like you confused my generation.i just happen to wake up and realized that something is wrong with american history.

Its better to state that Christopher Columbus proved the world was round and that there were lands no one knew of out there to be visited. On August 3 1492 He sailed from Palos Spain looking for the West Indies, and arrived on Oct 12, 1492 in the Bahamas. That means it took him 70 days to make the voyage. At least he didn't sail off the Earth!
Back then it was believed that the Earth was flat, everyone knew you couldn't sail around the world, you would fall off.  They had not heard of Amerigo Vespucci,  or Lief or any of the others, it was all new to him.
Christopher Columbus believed the world was round. He had a reason to believe it too. He had read in the Bible where God said, He sat on the sphere, (circle) of the earth. Columbus knew the Earth was round because God has said it was a sphere, a sphere is round like a circle. I thought you might like to know that. You can read about it yourself in the book of Isaiah chapter 40 verse 21

If Cristopher Columbus discovered America, who were all those people living there? If that were true, then I could fill my gas tank and drive to New Jersey and discover it.

Ponce de leon is credited with being the first European to set foot on what is now America(Florida)

He didn't discover it but he claimed it but really native Americans discovered it i  think of it as introducing America to the Europeans and everybody else

No christopher columbus did not discover america. Amerigo veccpuci did

Christopher Columbus never discovered America. Not
when a people,Native Americans, where here first. Be-
sides the dude was a slave trader....lowest of all hum-
anity.

I don’t like Christopher Columbus, because he is an evil blood-thirsty tyrant and he butchered and murdered hundreds of thousands of people he called Indians because he thought he sailed to the East Indies. He and his men would  chop the Indian bodies up and feed them to their horses. There is even a public holiday in his honour which I want to see abolished. I wished he wasnt;t born centuries ago and  he should have hanged for his crimes. He is a genocidal mass murderer possessed by the Devil. It is a joke that we had to learn about him in history class. Columbus brought back Indians to Spain to show the queen that he had been to the Indies and really he is a liar because he didn’t reach the Far East at all. The English, French, Dutch and Swedish explorers of America were peaceful people who traded with the Indians and left them alone and they didn‘t kill the Indians and were not greedy for gold. Columbus did not discover America, the Vikings did. Leif Ericsson reached the North American continent and is the rightful discoverer of America, Columbus is a usurper.

Yea duh he founded the amricas in 1492

It is most likely that he only claimed it, but someone else had already found it.

Yes he did.

Yes,he discovered America but he didn't know that that he has discovered a new land.He thought that it was subcontinent.

I don't think christopher discovered america because he found a dead man and that men found  america first

Was christopher columbus the first person to discover land and if he wasnt who was