1 "Discover America." That's what the vacation brochures say. Anyone can take a trip in an RV and discover America. Native Americans were traveling all over the North and South American continents and discovering America long before Columbus sailed in aboard the Santa Maria. Yet history books say that Christopher Columbus discovered America. Why do they say that? Who really discovered America?
2 Were the Native Americans really always here, or did they travel here from another continent too? Some people think that, a very long time ago, early people traveled across land from Russia to America, arriving in what is now Alaska. If you look at a world map, you will see that Russia and Alaska are not nearly as far apart as you might think, and they may have been connected at one time long ago.
3 Moving forward in history a little, now the Native Americans have been here for thousands of years, but people on all of the other continents of the world didn't even know that North and South America existed. Who would be the first person now to discover, or re-discover, America?
4 We do know that in 1492, Columbus arrived in America and at that time people in Europe, where he had come from, didn't even know that America existed. He wasn't even looking for America, remember? He was looking for a shorter route to the Indies.
