Leif Erikson

Leif Erikson was an Icelandic explorer who became the first European to reach North America, some 500 years before Christopher Columbus. Son of Erik the Red, who was the founder of the European settlement in Greenland, much of Leif Erikson’s life is generated by the two sagas, Saga of the Erik the Red and Groenlendinga Saga. Though the two contain different accounts of Erikson’s voyage to North America and subsequent finding of Vinland, they agree on the point that Erikson found America, much before Christopher Columbus did. Erikson had sailed from Greenland to Norway where he was converted to Christianity by the Norwegian King. It was on his journey back that he was blown off and consequently discovered North America. The other legend states that Erikson, upon hearing the presence of a land west to Greenland by an Icelandic trader, set forth his sails to discover the same. Whatever be the case, he became the first European to set his foot in the country. After having wintered over in Vinland, he sailed back to Greenland never to return to the North American shores. Erikson spent much of his later life spreading Christianity