For centuries, Christopher Columbus has managed to capture the public imagination and is remembered in history as the man who discovered America. Despite the fact that this is clearly not true, it has become impossible to turn this "history" on its head. Columbus had actually set off in search of India and it is clear from his diary that this is what he thought he had found. Moreover, people had been living in America, the land he "discovered", for many thousands of years before he arrived. It is difficult to know why his reputation has survived so long.

   Columbus wasn't even the first European to reach America. That had already happened 500 years before. In 982, Eirik the Red, chief of the Viking tribes on the island of Iceland, set sail and with the many people who went with him, set up a colony on the coast of Greenland.

   Conditions in the new homeland were harder than they had expected. The journey from Iceland to the new colony was disastrous and at least ten ships sank during the voyage. Once they had arrived they built farms. They made warm clothes out of animal skins and fur but there was not enough wood for building or burning. They had to trade things with the people from Iceland but there was no certainty that the trading ships would ever arrive. They found their attempts to survive becoming increasingly desperate.

   Eirik's son, Leif, was determined to find another solution. Now with 35 men, he sailed west, further than any European had ever travelled before. However, they found they had exchanged the hard life on Greenland for something even worse. The coast of Labrador where they had landed was a freezing land of cold winds and icy mountains.

   They continued their journey and, in the end, reached gentler, greener lands where they spent the winter. Now that Leif had found a route to a land which promised an easier life, other Vikings set off from Iceland to join the new colonies. His brother, Thorvald, was the first, but he was followed by ships carrying hundreds of men, women and animals.

   The new settlers soon found that the land was inhabited. They found the Indians primitive, but, unlike 500 years later, the settlers did not try to impose their religion on the new civilization they had discovered. They began trading, receiving coloured cloth in return for the furs they brought from the north.

   However, the peace did not last long. Some of the Vikings were Christians and others were not, and there was fighting between them. During the first winter, there was a terrible lack of food and the colonists had to live under the threat of attacks from the Indians. War soon broke out.

   It is in this light that we should judge the achievements of Columbus. In many ways he was certainly a hero, but the fact remains that he is famous for something that was achieved by someone 500 years before.

   The Indians kept the Vikings trapped in their colonies, unable to develop a strategy for survival. After three winters, the new Viking nation could no longer support itself. The Vikings decided to go back to Greenland, never to return to the New World.
                                                                                                From "Superstar"