Christopher Columbus encountered a continent.
The Americas ( also collectively called America ) encompass the totality of the continents of North and South America . Christopher Columbus . During his first voyage in 1492 , he reached the New World instead of arriving at Japan as he had intended , landing on an island in the Bahamas archipelago that he named `` San Salvador '' . Columbus never admitted that he had reached a continent previously unknown to Europeans , rather than the East Indies for which he had set course .