Leif Erikson
Leif Erikson or Leif Ericson ( 970 – c. 1020) was a Norse explorer from Iceland. He was the first known European to have set foot on continental North America (excluding Greenland), before Christopher Columbus. According to the Sagas of Icelanders, he established a Norse settlement at Vinland, tentatively identified with the Norse L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland in modern-day Canada. Later archaeological evidence suggests that Vinland may have been the areas around the Gulf of St. Lawrence and that the L'Anse aux Meadows site was a ship repair station.
Hans Pothorst
Hans Pothorst ( 1440 – 1490) was a privateer, likely from the German city Hildesheim. He is mostly notable because some have proposed that he may have discovered America along with Didrik Pining (among others) in the 1470s, almost twenty years before Columbus.