lpetrich
Contributor
Christopher Columbus was well-known for "discovering America", even though he is really the first European whose trips there became well-known.
Before him, around 1000 CE, Eric the Red discovered Greenland and his son Leif Ericson discovered Labrador (Markland) and Newfoundland (Vinland). However, LE's Vinland colony did not last long, and his voyages did not become well-known until after CC's.
Looking back further, to around 500 CE, we find St. Brendan, an Irish monk who seems like he had reached Iceland. At least if his account of “great demons threw down lumps of fiery slag from an island with rivers of gold fire” refers to volcanic activity and “great crystal pillars" refers to icebergs. He also found an island and lit a fire on it. It then sank. Seems like a whale. He also discovered cat monsters with big teeth. Walruses?
But it's rather hard to tell fact from fiction in the surviving accounts of his voyages.
Looking back even further, to 300 BCE, we find Pytheas of Massalia, what is now Marseille, France. He visited Great Britain and then sailed northward. He reached an island he called Thule, and he continued onward and encountered a "frozen sea". He could not proceed any further, so he turned back. As he traveled, he noticed that daytime was nearly all of the day, consistent with him having gotten near the Arctic Circle in summer.
There does not seem much evidence that St. Brendan or Pytheas or any other pre-Leif-Ericson European had reached the Americas, despite an abundance of claims to the contrary.
Before him, around 1000 CE, Eric the Red discovered Greenland and his son Leif Ericson discovered Labrador (Markland) and Newfoundland (Vinland). However, LE's Vinland colony did not last long, and his voyages did not become well-known until after CC's.
Looking back further, to around 500 CE, we find St. Brendan, an Irish monk who seems like he had reached Iceland. At least if his account of “great demons threw down lumps of fiery slag from an island with rivers of gold fire” refers to volcanic activity and “great crystal pillars" refers to icebergs. He also found an island and lit a fire on it. It then sank. Seems like a whale. He also discovered cat monsters with big teeth. Walruses?
But it's rather hard to tell fact from fiction in the surviving accounts of his voyages.
Looking back even further, to 300 BCE, we find Pytheas of Massalia, what is now Marseille, France. He visited Great Britain and then sailed northward. He reached an island he called Thule, and he continued onward and encountered a "frozen sea". He could not proceed any further, so he turned back. As he traveled, he noticed that daytime was nearly all of the day, consistent with him having gotten near the Arctic Circle in summer.
There does not seem much evidence that St. Brendan or Pytheas or any other pre-Leif-Ericson European had reached the Americas, despite an abundance of claims to the contrary.
