For all the nitpickers about discovering 'America', the only relevant discovery is the one that made its existance known to the bulk of humanity. In the context of 'discovering' "America", since we're talking about "America" (which to the native indigineous people it most certainly was not called) this should indicate that we are referring to America as it was discovered and coined by the modernized/civilized world at the time (Europe) people 'discover' things all the time, does this mean that no other human has found or seen it before? no it means that to a majority of humankind it was 'unknown', and its discovery has made it 'known'.