Fact: North America’s history began well before any Europeans arrived on its shores. Native American tribes had existed for at least 12,000 years and likely even longer.
Visitors to the continent arrived far earlier than the Pilgrims or even Columbus. Legend has it that Saint Brendan, a sixth-century Irish monk, sailed to North America in a wood boat covered in animal skins.
More factual is the account of the 10th-century Vikings’ journey to the Americas, which has been well-documented. Viking explorer Leif Erikson sailed to what he called “Vinland,” now Newfoundland, Canada.
Erikson and his crew didn’t settle there, however. They returned to Greenland and described Native Americans as “hostile.”
