10 Historical Lies You Totally Fell For

With his venture to the new world, the Italian-born explorer Christopher Columbus etched his name into history as the founder of modern-day America.

Columbus set out to discover a new route to India, under the assumption that if he head west he would inevitably arrive at his location thanks to the realisation that the planet was a sphere. He eventually landed after a year-long voyage in what we know today as the Bahamas, and though it is believed he was the first to locate it, he never actually set foot in North America.

Instead, the first known European to set foot in North America was Norse explorer Leif Erikson. Landing on the Canadian island of Newfoundland from his birthplace in Iceland, it was Erikson who was truly the man responsible for discovering North America.

An archaeological site was discovered on the island in 1960, with historians believing that the settlement dated back some 500 years before Columbus set sail. The continent would remain untouched by European explorers for almost five centuries, and once explorer John Cabot reached Canada in 1497, the slow process of European conquest in the new world was set in motion.