<P> The Viking voyages did not become common knowledge in the Old World, and Europeans remained ignorant of the existence of the Americas as a whole, until the first decades following the year 1492 . Many expeditions were launched from European nations in search of a Northwest Passage to East Asia (or "the Indies" as the region was called) in order to establish a shorter trade route to China than the Silk Road, a trade route which had become desperately needed and yet exacerbated by the Fall of Constantinople . Also, the Castilian crown needed an alternative to the Portuguese controlled eastern maritime trade route around Africa to India and East Asia . </P> <P> On August 3, 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail from the Port of Palos de la Frontera in the Province of Huelva, from the newly los Reyes Católicos coordinated Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, in present - day Spain, financed by Queen Isabella I of Castille . Columbus's Letter on the First Voyage of his discovery of the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola spread the news across Europe quickly . Columbus rediscovered and explored much of the Lesser Antilles in his second voyage then discovered both Trinidad and Tobago on his third voyage whilst skirting the northern South American coast . His fourth voyage was spent scanning the Central American coast . The Voyages of Christopher Columbus opened the New World . </P> <P> Italian navigator and explorer Giovanni Caboto (known in English as John Cabot) is credited with the discovery of continental North America on June 24, 1497, under the commission of Henry VII of England . Though the exact location of his discovery remains disputed, the Canadian and United Kingdom governments' official position is that he landed on the island of Newfoundland . The English presence through Giovanni Caboto was signaled in Juan de la Cosa's map of 1500 . </P> <P> In 1499 João Fernandes Lavrador was licensed by the King of Manuel I of Portugal and together with Pêro de Barcelos they reached Greenland and sighted Labrador for the first time since Leif Erikson, which was granted and named after Lavrador . After returning he possibly went to Bristol to sail in the name of England . Nearly at the same time, between 1499 and 1502 the brothers Gaspar and Miguel Corte Real explored and named the coasts of Greenland, Labrador and also Newfoundland, naming "Terra Verde" the explored North American coasts . Both explorations were signaled in 1502 Cantino planisphere . </P>

Who was the first european to reach what is now the us mainland