Who actually discovered America?
Leif Erikson
Leif Erikson or Leif Ericson[6] (c. 970 – c. 1020) was a Norse explorer from Iceland.[7] He was the first known European to have set foot on continental North America (excluding Greenland), before Christopher Columbus.[8][9] According to the Sagas of Icelanders, he 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.
John Cabot
Information about the 1497 voyage comes mostly from four short letters and an entry in a 1565 chronicle of the city of Bristol. The chronicle entry for 1496/7 says in full:
"This year, on St. John the Baptist's Day [24 June 1497], the land of America was found by the Merchants of Bristow in a shippe of Bristowe, called the Mathew; the which said the ship departed from the port of Bristowe, the second day of May, and came home again the 6th of August next following." –
G.E. Weare, "Cabot's Discovery of North America," (London, 1897), p. 116 