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discovery of America

  • Amerigo Vespucci was a pioneering navigator and popular chronicler, as well as the man who gave the American continent its name. He explored a long stretch of the South American coastline, and was the first person to realize that this part of the world was not an unknown region of Asia, but a completely separate continent. In particular, he discovered...
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  • In 1492, three ships captained by the Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus arrived in the New World. Although the Viking explorer Leif Eriksson had first discovered the Americas almost 500 years earlier, Columbus and his men were the first to establish sustained contact with the continent's indigenous populations. While his expedition brought immense wealth to the Spanish Crown and made it...
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  • Leif Eriksson is a crucial figure in maritime exploration: this Viking navigator is believed to have discovered the Americas at the turn of the first millennium AD, over 500 years before Christopher Columbus. Indeed, at this point in history the Vikings were far better explorers than other Europeans due to their more technologically advanced ships and excellent navigation skills, which allowed...
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