Chinese discovered America before Columbus?

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Beijing, Jan 15 (DPA) A Chinese seafarer may have discovered America long before Columbus, according to an old map that is to be presented in Beijing and London on Monday.

The map, a copy of an original from 1418, could prove that Chinese admiral Zheng He sailed around the American continent well before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492, The Economist magazine reported.
 
The native Americans weren't actually native. They probably walked from Siberia across the frozen sea to the Americans. Or they might have used rafts.

The Norwegians probably discovered it a few times before Columbus as well.
 
The greeks CAN'T have discovered it, because there were already people living there by that time. It would be like me going to your house and "discovering" it.

They might have GONE THERE, but it's a complete grammatical and logical short-circuit to say they discovered what was already inhabited.
 
The proper way to say it would be this IMO.

The Vikings were the first Europeans to reach America. Although I did read awhile back that some Roman artefacts of some sort had been discovered in Central America, the result of an apparent ship-wreck.
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SsP45 said:
The proper way to say it would be this IMO.

The Vikings were the first Europeans to reach America. Although I did read awhile back that some Roman artefacts of some sort had been discovered in Central America, the result of an apparent ship-wreck.
Yup; the Viking trip has been rather solidly confirmed by archaeological evidence as well.

There are also some stories around about an Irish monk named Saint Brendan who went there ~500 years before the Vikings too, but these stories are not nearly as well supported by evidence as the Viking trip.

The main difference when comparing to Columbus was the relative importance of their trips; Brendan apparently just made a brief visit, and the Vikings were basically just chased away by a hostile native population, essentially making both into little more than curious footnotes of history, whereas the Columbus trip had enormous economic and social consequences.
 
I read a book about 6 months ago titled, "1421: The Year China Discovered America". It was very interesting. It claimed that both Columbus and Magellan had maps showing them where to go, which were Chinese maps. They also circumnavigated the globe, greenland, found antartica, as well as west and east australia. It's a very good read although it could be rather slow at times.
 
There was a really good doco on Zheng shown here about 3 months ago. 4 parts 1 hour a pop. Showed a lot of the research into his fleet and some of the ships plus the evidence behind the claim. they think he circumnavigated the globe as well! I will try find the name.

Edit:
Damn my slow typing - i think that was the name of the doco series too mkillio.
 
Guden Oden said:
The greeks CAN'T have discovered it, because there were already people living there by that time. It would be like me going to your house and "discovering" it.

They might have GONE THERE, but it's a complete grammatical and logical short-circuit to say they discovered what was already inhabited.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=discover

See 2b. It's perfectly possible, logical and grammatically correct to discover something without being the first to do so. That said, I was wrong on the detail. Wikipedia have a decent article on the topic.
 
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Heh heh... Some friend grabbed my arm about a year ago, trying to tell me:

* Admiral Zheng arrived at Cape of Good Hope in the world's largest fleet at that time (and ships, twice as large as the Europeans'). Zheng traded goods with the natives and left. The natives still hold record of the encounter.

* When Cape of Good Hope was rediscovered (by I forgot who) many years later, the natives thought their old friends have come back, but was nastily surprised by hostile forces.

In any case, the Chinese history and folk lore has recorded various long haul seafaring trips. One of the more famous voyages was led by Emperor Chin's Ambassador, Hsu Fu. He was tasked to find the Medicine of Immortality. Fearing harsh punishment, he left with large shipment of young men and women, and never returned.
 
While I can believe that the Chinese did arrive in the Americas before Columbus, the particular evidence they are using in this case is absolute rubbish. Using a map that "might" be from 1763 is no evidence that the Chinese landed first. We just have the map author's word that he copied it from an earlier map.

The map itself, from what I've seen, looks like a forgery as well.

1.jpg


Even if the Chinese had arrived at America in 1418, I highly doubt it would have contained the level of detail that map is claiming. It would only have been a short expedition, I don't think they would have found the north pole and been able to determine the width of the continent through Central America.
 
I really think the biggest problem with this map is that Chinese probably didn't think the earth is round in 1418.
 
patsu said:
* When Cape of Good Hope was rediscovered (by I forgot who) many years later, the natives thought their old friends have come back, but was nastily surprised by hostile forces.
Bartolomeu Dias.

About columbus using a chinese map, well, too bad the chinese labeled america as "India" and forgot the pacific ocean... ;)

It's been rumoured that portuguese knew about brazil before getting there, but that's about as far as we can go without making baseless claims. In this case, at least, we have the tordesillas treaty to foster far out hypotheses.
 
It's still unknown whether Chinese came to America earlier than Columbus. The evidences are still not good enough. However, IMHO this map is certainly not a good evidence, because it looks fake. Chinese experts are skeptical, and there are some errors in the map, including words which shouldn't be used on a 15th century Chinese material. Some Chinese experts say that even if the map is real, it can't prove Zheng found the America, because at that time most Chinese maps are from Arab.
 
Guden Oden said:
The greeks CAN'T have discovered it, because there were already people living there by that time. It would be like me going to your house and "discovering" it.

They might have GONE THERE, but it's a complete grammatical and logical short-circuit to say they discovered what was already inhabited.
Well then, if this is the way you see it, did either the Chinese or Columbus "discover" America? Can anyone confirm that? America is a bigggg chunk of land, y'know...

Do you know at this day and age we're still "discovering" new animal/insect species?
 
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