"Tha Ghee" <grewatson@yahoo.com> wrote:

"Jack Crenshaw" <jcrens@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:Yq4Kb.21019$lo3.17226@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net.
.. 

When I was in grade school, I remember learning that
Columbus discovered America in 1492, but Jamestown wasn't
founded until something like 1610. 
  That's over 100 years between first contact and
  colonization.  I 
always wondered:  Why in the world would people wait? Why
waste 100 years after knowing North America was here, and
how to get to it?  It seemed crazy to me.

few things, Columbus thought he was in India and that was
already colonized, second South America where he landed was
Jamestown was the North America's first settlement of
England.  France and Finns already had people here. 

According to a National Geographic article several years ago, 
the crew of one of the earliest explorers of what is now Florida 
included about two dozen African-Americans!

It's really sad that that kid's school completely skipped 108 
years of history...among other stuff. Some Vikings lived on this 
continent a hell of a long time before Columbus, who never saw 
it.