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At 66 01' 03.27'' N - 169 45' 27.89'' V the height is 626m (2053 foot) The distance to the horizon is 89.4 kilometres (30.7 miles) From that point ~ 5 kilometres (3 miles) on the America land is visible.

This is a strange situation

And if they go at Big Diomede Island at 65 46' 30.56'' N - 169 04' 13.54'' V where the height is 478m (1568 foot) the horizon is at 78.1 km (48 miles) and the land sight is 32 km (20 miles)

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    Do you mean why it was not discovered by Europeans through the Bering Strait? There were native Americans living there. I think they discovered America before Europeans did, didn't they? They used the Bering Strait, obviously.
    – Rathony
    Commented Oct 10, 2016 at 10:41
  • Yes. The native Americans probably did that.
    – Sam
    Commented Oct 10, 2016 at 11:12
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    @Rathony - Used, never stopped using, and still to this day use.
    – T.E.D. ♦
    Commented Oct 10, 2016 at 13:12
  • @Sam: You mean "Native Siberians" did that:-) At the time there were no native Americans yet.
    – Alex
    Commented Oct 10, 2016 at 13:15
  • @Alex: Yes, you're right
    – Sam
    Commented Oct 10, 2016 at 13:27

2 Answers 2

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It was discovered, since there is evidence that the native Americans came from Asia through the Bering Strait land bridge (at a time where there was no sea in the straits due to the water being held in the glaciars of an Ice Age).

If you mean "why did Europeans (or Chinese/Muslim/etc.) travellers discover America from there?", the answer is that there were no European/Chinese/Muslim/etc. travellers going there, as it is very, very, very cold and is far, far, far away of anything with the minimal economical or strategic interest. In fact, there were no references to the Russian region bordering the Bering until 150 years after America was discovered.

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    And if you wonder why nobody went island hopping, the seas there are extremely rough and dangerous (quite in addition to being very cold), with strong and unpredictable winds and currents. Hard to navigate now in large steel motor ships, let alone a small rowed or sailboat with no navaids apart from the sun and stars (which are hidden by clouds there most of the time) and local knowledge of the coastline and currents (which explorers won't have in unexplored areas).
    – jwenting
    Commented Oct 10, 2016 at 11:10
  • Yes. Probably they explored briefly the area and the Atlantic Ocean was close and the weather was better
    – Sam
    Commented Oct 10, 2016 at 11:17
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    Trade occurred between East Asia and Alaska in ancient times. For instance, there have been artifacts produced in Asia found in 1000 year old sites in Alaska.
    – AlaskaRon
    Commented Oct 11, 2016 at 2:41
  • Then if europeans didn't arrived around 1500, the East Asia had to cartography the land.
    – Sam
    Commented Oct 11, 2016 at 7:04
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Columbus was neither the first human to discover the Americas, nor was he the first European.

In particular, the Aleutian Island chain is no real barrier to natives in possession of simple boats. The Aleut peoples to this day live on both sides, using little more technology than was available 20,000 years ago. The linguistic and genetic evidence we have seems to show there were at least three waves of immigration through that area, two of which while there was no land-bridge.

What Columbus was first at was he was the first person from a society that possessed printing presses to discover the Americas. Gutenberg's first press was operational by 1439, but it wasn't until the late 1400's that printing really started to spread all over Europe. Columbus' discovery was of course in 1492.

This was important because it meant that the knowledge of this discovery could be efficiently mass-produced and disseminated throughout the literate world.

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