From prudish Victorians to arrows in the eye – 10 things from history everyone gets wrong

FULL STORY by Rebecca Rideal: The GUARDIAN…..

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Mythconception #3: Columbus ‘discovered’ America

In popular imagination, the first European to “discover” America was Christopher Columbus in 1492. Yet there is evidence of a European presence in the Americas that precedes Columbus by several centuries. It is thought that the first European to discover America was a Norse explorer named Leif Erikson who voyaged from Greenland to what is now Canada in about AD1000. The theory is supported by carbon-dated archaeological discoveries at the site of L’Anse aux Meadows in Canada.