What if Columbus did not discover America?

[Plotinus]

I've never heard the term "East Indian" for an inhabitant of the subcontinent. Of course, that part of the world has in the past been called the East Indies, as opposed to the West Indies; but of course the West Indies means the Caribbean rather than the American mainland, and I don't think anyone has talked about the East Indies since Phileas Fogg.

Since Columbus, "Indian" has tended to be used as a term for native peoples wherever they are - not now, of course, but in past centuries. These things never follow any logical course really. After all, why does "Aborigine" always mean an indigenous Australian, when it simply means someone who is indigenous to anywhere? Similarly, why do Americans today refer to the people once known as "Indians" as "Native Americans", when the term "Native American" should simply mean anyone born in America?

 

[Kosez]

I have heard sometin' about Phoenician circumnavigation of the world. Columbus's ships weren't so much better than those old galleys. Vikings had even better ships, but they were small.

 

[antonio]

I heard that cocain was found in an Egyptian tomb as it is native to the americas there must have been trade between them.

 

[teccuk]

Steviejay

- yeah good point!!

 

[Hannabir]

If the European seafaring nations had hesitated, Russia could have started invading the Americas from the northwest. After all, the first people that discovered America came from Siberia.

 

[NWOG]

I thought the Vikings discovered the Americas several hundred years before Colombus?

 

[Hannabir]

Yes, but they were not the first.

The people that first found America were the people that originally populated it. They came from Siberia, Mongolia and Tibet.

 

[Xen]

I have heard sometin' about Phoenician circumnavigation of the world. Columbus's ships weren't so much better than those old galleys. Vikings had even better ships, but they were small.

I assure you; the little caravels that Columbus had with him were yight lears more advanced then the average Roman galley, or the viking longships. (although.... one has to wonder how the double hulled siege ships, if the siege equipment had been taken off, would have fared in atlantic waters; I'd imagine thier double hull, catamaran design woudl have given them significantlly more stability in the atlantic then the caravel could ever dream of...)

 

[PrinceOfLeigh]

I heard that the Vikings had landed in America but since there was nothing to pillage they just turned around and came home.

I also heard that it was possible that some English Knights in search of the Holy Grail had landed on America. I assume that they were very lost!!

I am not sure where I heard this from so if anyone else can confirm or dispell this let me know!