Leif Eriksson – circa A.D. 960

The Norse explorer Leif Eriksson—Leif the Lucky—is generally believed to have been the first European to land in North America, when, about A.D. 1000, he spent a winter in Newfoundland at a place he called Vinland (from the abundance of grapes there), establishing the first North American European settlement at present-day L’Anse aux Meadows.