How did people first reach the Americas?
93237
Ok, it's not the Berlin strait, Berlin is a city in Germany. it's the BERING Strait, and it was a lond bridge from Russia to Alaska that eventually broke off and separated the continents
625513
Try reading John Milton's book, Paradise Lost...it will clear up all of your "first people on earth" questions.
138326
Vespucci didn't get to America until 1497.  He was not the first.  It is possible, I suppose, That the Japanese made it, but there is no evidence to support that.  Some say that St. Brenden the Navigator may have been the first to land on America.
688323
There is a theory that during the Ice Age, Asiatic people traveled across the Bering Land Bridge  from Russia to Alaska. Over hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, these nomadic people dispersed themselves across the Americas. This is why Native Americans and many Pacific Islanders are very similar, because both came from Asia. Obviously neither changed much over the many years that they lived in different climates. This also tells us that Native Americans, native as they are, were not specifically genetically designed to fit perfectly to the American climates in the first place. Genetics also has a great deal to contribute in this equation because most Americans today are not Native American, thus they won't be passing down those genes... So to sum it all up, no.
368827
north america is north of the equator and south america is outh
280968
By whom?  And do you actually mean the United States or do you mean North America?  \n\nMany anthropologists now believe that Asians crossed the Bering Strait thousands of years ago to become the first human settlers of North America.  The Vikings visited the coasts of Labrador, Newfoundland, and possibly the eastern seaboard hundreds of years before Columbus.  Portuguese and Spanish fishermen were fishing off the coast of Newfoundland long before 1492.  By anyone's definition, Columbus was a late-comer.  And in any event when he got to the coast of North America there were already people here, so he didn't actually "discover" it.
624121
Consider the date.  Columbus is attributed as the discoverer of America.  It was not determined to be America until after his death well after 1500.  I doubt there are too many maps in the time period you are requesting.  The second link below is a picture of a mid 1500's map from Spain.\n\nAn exception, however, is the Vinland map thought to have been made about 1440...thought to be the first of North America rendered by explorer Eiriksson.
624569
South of North America.
604567
First, the Europeans had known right along about Africa (which was a short hop across the Mediterranean) and about Asia, though their dealings with the Far East (India to China) came rather late, and were a result of contact with Muslims, esp. after the Crusades.\n\nAs for America, the discovers knew NOTHING about America (leaving aside for now the brief settlement from an earlier discovery by people from Iceland --by way of Greenland) when Columbus stumbled into it when trying to get to the Far East more quickly by crossing the Atlantic (rather than trekking by land or sailing around Africa).  This is, of course, why they were "discoverers"!  (Actually, he would have been a discoverer if he had found the route he was looking for rather than a new continent he wasn't looking for.)\n\nIronically, Columbus's critics --who said it was too far and too dangerous-- had a much more accurate estimate of the earth's circumference than he did!   \n\nFurther irony, Columbus never knew that he HAD discovered a new continent.  He died believing he had reached the edge of the "Indies" [hence they are called the West Indies to this day].   It was Amerigo Vespucci who first concluded, while exploring the coast and part of the interior of South America in a 1501-02 voyage, that this was not part of the Far East at all, but a new continent. (The widespread circulation of his letter on this point explains how he became associated with the discovery itself and why mapmakers put a version of HIS name on a map of the "new world" in 1507.)\n\nOne other consideration -- why didn't they sail out to attempt such things earlier?   Because it was only in the 15th century that Europeans (beginning with the Portugese) developed the navigational tools and skills to undertake such voyages.\n\n**Note to mon l -- none of this had ANYTHING to do with "falling off the edge of the earth".  All these folks knew (and the educated had known for many centuries) that the world was round (contra later anti-Catholic propaganda and a blunder in a popular 19th century biography of Columbus that has influenced the popular understanding ever since).  The obstacle the experts --including some fine navigators-- saw was the great DISTANCE to Asia -- and on that point, they were correct!
107961
The Spanish were the first to introduce horses to the Americas in modern times.
168777
Columbus wanted to prove you could sail to the far east by sailing west, that the world was round.\n\nAnd, he didn't discover America. He thought we was in India.\n\nColumbus was the prototype of a Politician: he headed off not knowing where he was going, arrived not knowing were he was, and did it all on borrowed money.
79167
Columbus didn't "discover" America. However, he first arrived in the Carribean islands (Cuba is not where he 1st landed though) in 1492. He didn't set foot onto what would become mainland American until around 1500.
620907
Both continents of the Americas were fully populated by Native Americans in 1492.  Columbus was only the first Spaniard to find the New World.  The Vikings had settled for a short time in Newfoundland in the 11th century.
363500
Considering Columbus never really made it to America, I would have to say Lewis and Clark would have to be the pick of the two you mentioned.  Columbus got as far as the Bahamas and stopped. Hence his new found world, but never really made it to America.
48825
really if you think about it. the natives found the americas. they were here long before anyone else.
442993
Christopher Columbus was the first to make the new land known to the rest of the world.  At that time, Europe was the area of the world where all information spread from. Also, Europe was in the Age of Exploration. The countries or should I say empires were looking for new routes to Asia to avoid import taxes which were common in ports on the Mediterranean Sea. This was the usual route most traders took in reaching Asia.  Christopher Columbus believed he had reached Asia until the time he died. Later explorers were the ones who realized he had landed in a new world. The Vikings were in North America much earlier, but their main concern was food, and the only record we have of their being in North America was found in the Sagas they wrote.
31336
the first country to be discovered was west indies. hemant it's aditya.