The Bahamas are in North America, part of the American continents—which were then unknown in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and heck, Antarctica. The great Cristoforo didn't discover my hometown, either, but I give him credit getting in the ballpark. The many South American countries that celebrate Columbus Day would also disagree with your contention.
Leif Ericson no doubt did land here, and as I recall, some of the Viking artifacts found in Minnesota are credible. St. Brendan might have been here, and also the Phoenicians, who were amazing sailors. And why should we cheat the aboriginals who were here before the Indians' ancestors crossed the land bridge from Siberia and apparently exterminated them?
The point is that none of these other discoveries "took" for Western consciousness—which now rules the world, no apologies. Columbus made it count. The whole civilized world found out, and there were immediate, world-changing consequences—military, economic, spiritual, genetic . . . Just wow.
It seems to me that if we don't adopt that standard—which is certainly the one recognized since the 16th century—but instead we insist that "discovery" is just the act of getting here, we have to credit some migratory bird, or perhaps an adventurous squid.
They were NOT unknown in Europe. That’s one of the big lies people get taught. They had good knowledge there was another land mass there, the only thing they weren’t sure of was if it was worth the effort to exploit.
You actually point out exactly why Columbus’ actions are over blown. What matters is that Europe decided to continue the connection. It would have happened with or without Columbus, it was just a matter of timing.
I AM adopting that standard, which is why I point out that Columbus did not discover America. At most Columbus is the guy that said “yup, there’s cool stuff here, we should take”.