Norse Map or German Hoax? Still No Rest for Vinland (washingtonpost.com)
"When it surfaced in 1957, it was too good to be true: a purported 15th-century world map depicting an island to the far west labeled Vinilandia Insula -- the fabled Vinland -- proof positive, it seemed, that Norse explorers had reached North America long before Columbus."
My father still has a copy of the original book Yale published touting the Vinland Map -- purporting to show the Viking discovery of America -- before ithe map was exposed as a forgery. I grew up in the certainty that it was a clever fake, and that the University had been fooled. It seems not everyone is willing to let the matter rest, however.