[eraser2005]

Most of the 8th grade American history classrooms held polls in which students got to vote on “who really discovered America?” I am not naive enough to believe that teacher influence played no role in the eventual results, which showed “Chief Howling Wind” easily defeating Columbus, 178 to 2.

Of course, if he thinks the correct answer is Columbus, he's an idiot. For one, he couldn't have been the first to "discover" America if there were natives living there already. By pure definition, the ancestors of the natives would be the ones who discovered the land. And Columbus wasn't even part of the first European discovery of America, as Erikson had done it years before.

Columbus did represent the first European discovery of America with historical significance on European and colonial history, however...

How you word the question is very important....

[kitkat]

***How you word the question is very important....***

In THIS, case it's only important if you're a nit picker.