USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Leif Eriksson Day commemorates the Norse explorer believed to have led the first European expedition to North America. Nearly 500 years before the birth of Christopher Columbus, a band of European sailors left their homeland behind in search of a new world.

Detailed explanation-2: -Historians generally recognize three motives for European exploration and colonization in the New World: God, gold, and glory.

Detailed explanation-3: -Columbus was partly inspired by 13th-century Italian explorer Marco Polo in his ambition to explore Asia and never admitted his failure in this, incessantly claiming and pointing to supposed evidence that he had reached the East Indies.

Detailed explanation-4: -Columbus’s journeys to the Americas opened the way for European countries to colonize and exploit those lands and their peoples. Trade was soon established between Europe and the Americas. Plants native to the Americas (such as potatoes, tomatoes, and tobacco) were imported to Europe.

Detailed explanation-5: -The explorer Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain: in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502. He was determined to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia, but he never did. Instead, he stumbled upon the Americas.