A Milanese friar mentions North America in 1345 text, 150 years before Columbus

[Warpy]

11. It's pretty well known that the Vikings came here farely frequently

from Greenland, although they gave up on the idea of a permanent colony pretty quickly. They visited here to cut timber and trap fur animals to take home with them to Greenland, so a 1345 reference doesn't surprise me a bit.

That's during the years of the Black Death in Europe, one thing that helped kill off the Greenland colony. Trade with Europe had been handled mostly through Bergen in Norway and the population there pretty much collapsed, taking trade and the means to supply the colony with it. Only the old remained on Greenland, younger people had started to emigrate when the climate turned much colder, starting decades before the collapse.