Madog ab Owain Gwynedd

In Welsh folklore, Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd was a Welsh prince who sailed to the Americas in 1170, over 300 years before Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1492. According to the story, Madoc was a son of Owain Gwynedd who went to sea to flee internecine violence at home. The "Madoc story" evolved from a medieval tradition about a Welsh hero's sea voyage, of which only allusions survive. The story reached its greatest prominence during the Elizabethan era when English and Welsh writers wrote of the claim Madoc had gone to the Americas as an assertion of prior discovery, and hence legal possession, of North America by the Kingdom of England.