(970 – 1020)
Leif Erikson was a Norse explorer from Iceland. He was the first known European to have discovered continental North America (excluding Greenland), before Christopher Columbus (or possibly Saint Brendan). According to the Icelander lore, Erikson established a Norse settlement at Vinland, tentatively identified with the Norse L’Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland in modern-day Canada. Later archaeological evidence suggests that Vinland may have been the areas around the Gulf of St. Lawrence and that the L’Anse aux Meadows site was a ship repair station.
