1421

I just recently finished reading this book that a friend lent to me. I’m left wondering how the United States educational system could have left me so ignorant as to believe that Christopher Columbus discovered America. As you might be able to tell, I am sort of bitter that our history books continue to teach this blatant falsehood. I mean, sometime during my high school years I realized that there was plenty of evidence for Vikings having arrived in Newfoundland at least 500 years before Columbus, but my high school history books said jack about it. Now, I come to find out that not only did the Chinese explore America at least 70 years before Columbus, but that there is evidence they may have been there 400 to 600 years before Leif Ericson and his Vikings. This book is definitely worth reading. The author’s website is a nice place to get a quick view of the evidence. A quick synopsis of the reams of evidence includes a Chinese junk from the 1400’s found up a river from San Francisco bay, a type of chicken that is only found in S. Asia found being used by the natives by the first Europeans in the Americas in the exact same way the Chinese were using them (diviniation). A laquer process (which is very long and difficult and not very likely subject to reinvention) found in both China and Mexico with little difference between the two and the same colors being used. Maize (corn) which grew only in N. America, being found in the Phillipines by Magellan…etc. Anyway, the book is worth reading for a good summary of the early Ming Dynasty and the trading network of S. Asia in the 1400s and earlier if nothing else.