Complete Idiot’s Guide to American History by Alan Axelrod

Who’s on First? (50,000 B.C.-A.D. 1500S)

In This Chapter

Where the “first Americans” came from

The Mayas, Incas, and Aztecs

The Anasazi, Mound Builders, and Pueblos

Leif Eriksson, first European in America

Look at a map that shows the north Pacific Ocean. You’ll find the Bering Sea, an arm of the Pacific bounded on the east by Alaska, on the south by the Aleutian Islands, and on the west by Siberia and the Kamchatka Peninsula. Near the north end of the Bering Sea is the Bering Strait, which, lying between Alaska and Siberia, connects the Bering Sea with the Chukchi Sea of the Arctic Ocean. At its narrowest, the strait is only 55 miles across, the shortest distance between the continents of North America and Asia. Fifty-five miles in icy cold water is a long swim, but not much of an ocean voyage. Historians believe that once upon a time, there wasn’t even that 55 miles of water between the continents.