This illustrated nonfiction series is a rollicking read through the fascinating, the horrible, the absolutely awesome, and the positively wacky world of American history. The Vikings, Columbus, Cabot, Balboa, Ponce de Leon, Cortes, Cartier, Coronado--from 1000 to the 1540s, Europeans explorers were making a mad dash to the Americas. They claimed they had "discovered" a "New World." Of course this was news to the people who'd been living in the Americas for thousands of years. People who had built palaces, bathrooms with steam baths, cities. People who had GOLD! It was inevitable: New World and Old World collided!