<human>:  Why do people believe that Christopher Columbus discovered America?
<bot>: To begin with, there are a lot of versions of the story of Columbus' travels. The commonly accepted version is that he was sailing westward, looking for a passage to Asia, when he came upon a large group of islands off the eastern coast of Asia. People who believe the story think that Columbus believed that he had just discovered Asia, and he actually named the islands the “West Indies”. This is based on a printed map from 1507. After returning to Europe, he got a lot of criticism for not having found the riches of Asia, and he began to publish a series of letters and writings about the East Indies.