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Re: RAIN 10/10: Who really discovered America?



Thomas Wood overstates the case just a tad:

> On the other hand, these dubiously-documented pre-Columbian "discoveries"
> are irrelevant, because they had no impact on history. Columbus was probably
> not the first, but his discovery was the vanguard of the massive European
> colonization movement that, for good or ill, created the Americas as we know
> them.

The sighting of North America by Bjarni Herjolfsson, the landing in North America by Leif Eiriksson, the attempted
colonizations by Thorfinn Karlsfni Thodarson and Bjorn Breidavik-Champion Asbrandsson, and the Norse settlement
excavations at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, are not "dubious." The Kensington Runestone could well be doubted, but
not these other things.

Granted, the big push to the New World started with Columbus, and to suggest otherwise would be revisionist. Yet to
assert that the Norse in North America five centuries before Columbus "had no effect on history" is false. They had a
minimal, but tangible, effect. For example, in 1075 a German priest, Adam of Bremen, wrote that many voyages had been
made to Vinland and that its wine was great!

Cheers!

Eric

--

Eric v. d. Luft, Ph.D., M.L.S.
Curator of Historical Collections, Health Sciences Library
SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY 13210
<http://web.upstate.edu/lufte/> -- 315-464-4585
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                              *****

"Be always sure you're right, then go ahead."
                                          -- Davy Crockett
                                [Autobiography, 1834, title page]

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