Black The Blue NC America flag shirt

The first known European settlement in the Americas was by the Norse explorer Leif Erikson. However, the colonization never became permanent and was later abandoned. The Spanish voyages of Christopher Columbus from 1492 to 1502 resulted in permanent contact with European and subsequently, other Old World powers, which eventually led to the Columbian exchange and inaugurated a period of exploration, conquest, and colonization whose effects and consequences persist to the present.