Who Discovered America? Setting the Record Straight on Columbus

There was no Spanish explorer who claimed to have discovered America. The credit traditionally goes to Christopher Columbus, an Italian navigator sailing under the Spanish flag, who reached the Americas in 1492.

While Columbus's voyages initiated sustained European contact, it's important to recognize that Indigenous peoples had inhabited the continents for millennia, and Norse explorers like Leif Erikson likely arrived centuries earlier. Columbus's expeditions, however, opened the door to widespread European exploration and colonization.