Well apart from the people that lived their for centuries, we have always been told that Christopher Columbus was the first non-native American to discover the continent.
Christopher Columbus did sail to one of the islands now called the Bahamas. He also stopped off at Cuba and a few other places but never set foot on the North American mainland.
He thought the islands were off the coast of India, which is why they are known as the West Indies. He still believed he’d landed in Asia, rather than a different continent until he died in 1506.
The Vikings had landed in North America centuries before Columbus, also there were claims by the Irish, African, Polynesian and Chinese voyages before Columbus reached South America.
There are a few theories of where the name America originated from. One theory is that it was named after an explorer named Amerigo Vespucci who had traveled to South America around 1500.
Another theory suggests that it was named after Amerrique, a gold-mining district of Nicaragua, but no one is entirely sure which one is correct.