exploration

The Setup. In the year 2000, scientists discover a metal that can be used to build submarines that can go as deep as 50,000 ft. A submarine is built with this metal and it is called the IMPREGNABLE 1000. Three men are sent down into the atlantic ocean and they discover an entire civilisation of...

Prince Henry the Navigator was the son of King John I of Portugal, founder of the House of Aviz. In the 15th Century, he was instrumental in the Age of Discovery, and the early development of Portuguese exploration and maritime trade with other continents, having been a patron of Portuguese...

The first wave of European colonisation - or the Second Viking Age in North Europe - began with the Norwegian re-settlement of Vinland in the late 14th century. When King Håkon VI of Norway received a request to send a new bishop to Greenland in 1379, he decided to send an expedition to survey...

I will ask a simple question: What if Christopher Columbus landed somewhere else? Maybe he gets blown north and lands near DC, or south to Surinam.

I've been watching documentaries lately during the quarantine and one video on youtube brought something interesting to my attention. It was mentioned that in 97 AD, an ambassador named Gan Ying was sent by the Eastern Han general Ban Chao to make contact with the empire known as Daqin. We in...

Considering the trailblazers of the A of E in the OTL, I'd like to explore potential alternative candidates to those we know, and possible consequences of their endeavours. Firstly, the Americas: supposing some crises or series of unfortunate events stalled Spain or Portugal from exploring...

(I know this sounds ASB, and implausible, but it just entertaining) With a POD, 1300s, escaping persecution, the remnants of the Knight Templar's take their fleet and treasure from France, and sails to North America, landing in Modern day Newport Rhode Island (because Newport Tower) and create...

What if Columbus doesn’t get support for his expedition west in the 1490’s, but someone else gets support that decade to sail west along the North Atlantic? From an earlier discussion:

Either all of his ships sunk on the way back or the natives killed all of them. Would the America’s still see the same level of destruction from disease, if so how long would it take for them to recover? How long would it take for Europe to try again?

So what if land or naval expeditions of OTL, that ended up in failure or even complete disappearance, succeeded and provided invaluable informations abou new lands and sea routes ? Conversely, which successful expeditions of OTL were far too lucky for their own good and could do with a sudden...

My money is on the Vikings, who actually tried it in parts of Newfoundland, but who else might have gotten here first?

The Lion Haired Men - Estan should voyage outside the Pillars of Byax and found cities along the coast of Khestiu and the islands of the Weshesh. He set forth with twenty ships of fifty oars and a multitude of men and women, to the number of ten thousand, and with salted meat and other...

Introduction: Or where I, Rognvald, try to explain the thesis It has been many years since I have participated actively on alternatehistory.com, and I recognize that the culture of the board may have changed since those long off days of 2015. The rigors of scholarship and accuracy and the...

The most obvious scenario to delay European discovery of the Americas is to have Columbus die en route. However, in the previous thread about this topic, it was argued that due to Portugal's Volta do mar navigational technique and English voyages to find Hy-Brasil, that if Columbus didn't...

What if James Cook was never born? Would this mean that British exploration into Oceania takes longer? Was James Cook that essential, or would someone else just take his place? If Britain took longer or maybe never went to Oceania, what would happened? Would the Dutch take Australia, or the...

After 1492, have one country be able to control BOTH continents of the Americas (only exception is Greenland). Which country is most likely to be able to hold on to them long term? What would the continents be like and how does this affect the rest of Europe who are unable to lay claim to the...

With a POD after Islam, make an expedition from a nation located on the other end of the Cape of Good Hope (so bordering the Indian or Pacific oceans) border Africa and reach Europe and dominate trade and the oceanic lanes there much like Portugal dominated the Indian Ocean during the early Age...

It is well known that the portuguese were indeed the pioneers of true high seas sailing and global exploration. Not only that, but they seemed to handle information about discoveries very differently from other europeans. Sadly, much of the classified documents about naval expeditions that the...

This is also a sort of plausibility check as well. The challenge and what if scenario here revolves around the very obscenely wealth Mansa Musa I of the Mali Empire ould have managed to, through expeditions, find and discover South America and perhaps even established settlements or trading...

Capital. The lifeblood of agricultural civilization, the property that knows many shapes, the root of all the evils of mankind. For want of capital and the control over the means of its production, the elite-conglomerations, the states of the world would fight many wars, make marriages and...