Somebody would have found it eventually. Besides that, who did he influence that would put him ahead of others on this list?

  He discovered RAY CHARLES!!!!!

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He is one of the premier actors on the stage of world history. Because of his discovery, European power came to dominate the world. That is still true today.

I am amazed at the attacks on Columbus, but I have to attribute that to the semi-educated morons who emerge from our educational systems spouting and relying upon a mish-mash of slogans and politically correct indoctrination.

Well, if he wasn't influential, he should have been.

Overrated and sliding as historians interpret and explain away the childish myth that Columbus 'discovered' anything- it was Europe's reaction and readiness for the new world and a little less Columbus. . .I'm not taking away from the man's place in history, but CC pales in the shadow of others on this list. . .

So Vikings discovered America first. Valid point, but the rest of Europe never caught on, no Europeans had been to there in probably what, over 400 years? So what if Columbus discovered America by accident while trying to reach the East. That accidental discovery was pretty influential in my opinion. Just because what he did wasn't what he set out to do doesn't make it unimportant.

Columbus is only as influential as historians has made him.  It is an undeniable fact that there was contact between the East and the Americas long before Columbus.  Few know that Columbus was also a brutal slavetrader.  When he landed in the Caribbean, there were as many as 5 million inhabitants, after he left, there were none.  Slavery, disease, and genocide wiped out the inhabitants.  I do not believe he is as influential when it comes to exploration as history portrays him.

Discovered Latin America in 1492, but Vikings found Americas more than four hundred years earlier. Yet we don't have a Vikings day do we?

He found America by sheer luck and stupidity. His caluclations of the worlds circumfrence was off by thousands while during his same era people already had calculated it within 10 miles or so. He expected to reach India much quicker than it took to reach the new world. Someone with a brain would have reached the new world within a few years of 1492 anyways and would have brought enough food. Columbus is a moron and should not be considered influencial. I might find who won the 1903 World Series, but the person who deserves the credit is the person who explains what happened in it. Columbus found the new world by accident (he did not even know that he did anyways), but the person who figured out that it was a different continent and learned the country deserves the credit.

Christopher Columbus was a terrible person. The only thing he did was cause the extiction of an entire race of people, the Arawak Indians of Hispanola, the island that now consists of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. He didn't discover America, as, obviously, there were already people there when he got there. He wasn't even the first European in America, as the Vikings had reached Newfoundland as early as 1000 CE, and there is also considerable evidence that the Phoenicians may have reached America as early as 300 BCE (though, technically they aren't Europeans). Still everybody does know who he is.

Columbus, contrary to popular belief, only found the Americas, he did not infect America. The Spanish Inquisitions of the early 16th century did that. The Spanish were greedy and their greed overcame the Aztecs, Mayans, and Inca, three of the best cultures ever formed.

Anyone interested in Christopher Columbus should read Pastwatch, by Orson Scott Card. The book demonstrates just how influential Columbus could have been. It's an incredibly plausible historical fiction, and his portrayals of alternate histories are amazing and utterly believable.

discovered America... big deal

Ol' Chris was certainly influential, but maybe not in a good way. His name has become a icon of the discovery of the new world due to the intellectual and political advances of the Renaissance Man. I wouldn't be sitting pretty next to the Pacific Ocean in beautiful So. Cal without Ol' Chris. But, in a way, he didn't really discover America, he INFECTED it! His arrival brought disease, war, guns, and a highly evolved competitive nature to a spiritually advanced society that ALREADY LIVED HERE. The culture they replaced was self-sustaining, highly spiritual, and worked an average of less than 10 hours a week due to plentiful resources. What if we had simply blended our scientific advances with their knowledge of the best way to live on the land? Columbus didn't discover anything, he started a wave of migration that has most certainly been THE MOST INFLUENTIAL event in US history.

He may not have been the most influential man in world history, and I could really careless if he discovered America or not. It can't be denied that he busted his butt working most of his life for ungrateful people who don't seem to appreciate anything. I don't claim to know everything about his history, or anything like that, but I don't think he deserves that much disrespect...