The belief that Christopher Columbus discovered America is apparently widespread. In a 2005 survey from the University of Michigan , 85% of Americans believed that Columbus discovered the continent while only 2% of respondents were able to correctly answer that Columbus couldn't have possibly discovered America because Native Americans already lived here.
In any case, the first European to land in America is widely accepted by historians to be the Viking explorer Leif Erikson, who sailed from Greenland to Newfoundland in Canada in around 1,000 A.C.
Columbus is historically significant because, in his 1492 voyage to the Americas, he brought diseases that
killed a massive portion of the Native American population — some suggest as much as 90% — and paved the way for European imperialism in the Western Hemisphere.
