Leif Erikson, son of the Norse explorer Erik the Red, was the first European known to have discovered continental North America excluding Greenland, before Christopher Columbus. He established a Norse settlement at Vinland, tentatively identified with the L’Anse aux Meadows, on the northern tip of Newfoundland, in modern-day Canada.
After spending a winter in Vinland, Leif sailed back to Greenland, and never returned to North American shores.
The location of Vinland had been debated over the centuries, and various spots along the northern Atlantic Coast had been cited. In the early 1960s, excavations at L’Anse aux Meadows produced evidence of the base camp of the 11th-century Viking exploration.
The voyage by Leif Erikson was marked as an exceptionally remarkable one. Unfortunately, the death of Leif Erikson had not been mentioned in the sagas of Greenland.
The American mainland was later discovered by Christopher Columbus of Spain.