Interesting question......Anyone know?
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Junius Venator.
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
Lief Ericksson about 200 years before Christopher Columbus. I think it was Lief Ericksson. It was some Viking at any rate.
Posted by Makotokat (Member # 1041) on :
Have they proven that? I heard a rumour but no actual proof that Romans had made it here.
Posted by Makotokat (Member # 1041) on :
970 to about 1020 or thereabouts. Vikings visited many times from greenland, the first European born here was Snorri, a viking boy.
So why do people still believe it was Columbus?
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
If by people you mean those hailing from the US of A, well its a well known fact that they are a little on the slow side of things.
The rest of North America accepts that Vikings were the first Europeans to visit.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
If only there was some way to discover a continent of facts on the internet.
But "who was the first" has never seemed as important as "who's discovery mattered?" which is clearly Columbus, even if one is in the mood for arguing over the definition of "discovered."
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
It was an Inuit that crossed the Berring and became the progenitor of all the Aztec, Toltec, Mayan etc. cultures.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Probably the ancient civilisation of Mu?
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Wasn't it Kim Stanley Robinson's Years Of Rice And Salt where the Chinese & the Islamic Empires met up & clashed in the middle of North America? It's been eons since I read it.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
It was the aliens that planted the seeds of life on our rock that really first discovered this continent, although that long ago it was in another location, but still.
Posted by Makotokat (Member # 1041) on :
The Vikings had hundreds of years of presence here, fishing, hunting, trapping and living in New-found-land
....Columbus discovered something more valuable that meant a lasting presence, slaves. Remember he owed a lot of money. Sufice it to say his reputation has not survived the test of time.
Nor for that matter has the sweet tale of Pocohontas, when a middleaged sailor married a 12 year old.....
But as far as dicovery goes it would have to be the Variag. It is believed that a mediteranian ship from the tiome of the greeks MAY have made it, but never made it back (evidence is sketchy)
Also Note I said Europeans as there is slight evidence that the Chinese may have visited before then, but they then burned all the maps and forgot about it.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Just for the record, Pocahontas was more like nineteen when she married. And her husband was only about ten years older. That's certainly not unusual for that time.
However, if you're really looking for such a story, consider the tale of my own great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, Robert Drouin and Anne Cloustier who were married in 1637 in Qu�bec, when he was almost 30, and she was 11. It's not as bad as it sounds, though. They weren't allowed to, erm... consummate the union... until she was older. And, for "older", read "fourteen". She birthed three children between the ages of fifteen and twenty, and died a couple years later.
Ah, the seventeenth century. Simpler times, eh?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I highly recommend, for those interested in such stories, William T. Vollmann's Seven Dreams novels(series? cycle?). They are, in general, about European/American encounters. I've only read two of the four available, but I'm a Vollmann fan in general so I feel safe in suggesting the others:
[*]The Ice Shirt
[*]Fathers and Crows
[*]The Rifles
[*]Argall
As a bonus, Argall is totally about John Smith. Well, John Smith, and Argall.
They are wordy, though. Argall in particular.
quote:I fear to compound my first offense, in penning such slender and tuneless lines as these, by presuming to direct them to yourself, particularly when their subject is a mere Wilderness of insignificant Salvages. For what could bulk more worthy of our puzzlings (save THE ALMIGHTIE Himself), than the hives of Godliness we call Cities? And what less so, than Fens & frog-pools? (O darling fat frogs! If witches denied to take you in marraige to be their familiars, we wouldn't need to burn witches!) I incline toward the best, Right Honourable; I'd fain kiss your hand -- yet this Book of mine doth drag me down toward the worst. Truth to tell, my own self mires me now. My mind descends and condescends to foulness; the tale I must tell's putrescent with sin -- dangerous not to you, Right Honourable, for by virtue of your celestial blood you're proof against infamy's infections, but I own no such liquid armor, being chinked 'twixt my platelets with Adam's taint. Therefore, did you give me leave I'd take my leave of Captaine Argall, John Smith & Princesse Pokahuntas before e'er their simulacra broach'd your stage!
("Should it please you, Reader, we'll embark at wise-named Gravesend, to put period to our English doom. Life at home being death, why not steal resurrection from Salvages?")
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by Makotokat: Also Note I said Europeans as there is slight evidence that the Chinese may have visited before then, but they then burned all the maps and forgot about it.
The Chinese believe that several Eunuch Captains during the Han? Dynasty - around the early 1400s (might be the wrong dynasty) set out on a grand voyage of discovery - resulting in the discovery of Australia and New Zealand and reaching Africa and the Americas. There is no real evidence of this happening - hang on - haven't we discussed this just recently? Anyway the fact that it's being brought up again and again recently is another attempt to drum up Chinese nationalism and their own superiority, now and in the past.
I've found a book stating that there are maps dating from the 800's showing Australia had been visited by Arabic peoples from the Middle East.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
There's nothing mythical about the existence of Zheng He or his various expeditions, though there are (as we should expect) various fantastical claims attached to the historical reality.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I didn't mean to say it was 'mythical' - just that some of the claims are rather... far reaching.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
But at last check, China != Europe. So Zheng He, although interesting, is not part of the First Europeans To Visit America Club.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"...being chinked 'twixt my platelets with Adam's taint."
Now, that's just filthy.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Topher: But at last check, China != Europe. So Zheng He, although interesting, is not part of the First Europeans To Visit America Club.
Sure it does! There's America, and then there's just...everything else.
We're the Prime Rib of the world, and you guys are, you know...hotdog meat. Posted by Chris (Member # 71) on :
And just which definition of America are you using there? The proper definition or the silly US-centric defintion? Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Obviously- the rest of the northern and southern continents will be ours soon: The plan is to make all the illegal immigrants into citizens, then deport them all back to their native countries. Their children will automatically be citizens and so on untill we annex the territories they live in as "protectorates".
No bloodshed, stronger econemy and cheap labor.
Posted by Makotokat (Member # 1041) on :
Funny I thought China was in Asia?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
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