1421

This has been on the History Channel's Ancient Discoveries series twice.
What if, according to the book 1421, China had discovered America 71 years before Columbus? The theory's controversial. Some experts say that there's noway China could have done it. Others say that China had built a fleet of ocean-going junks that were as large as the Titanic. On what side of the debate
do come down on? Possible, or ASB?
Gavin Menzies' theory?
Put it this way: The idea of the Chinese being very vaugly aware of the Americas and conducting more exploration of the Pacific than genrally aknowlaged is plausible. The actual theory proposed by Menzies (i.e. The chinese conducting an utterly massive survey of the entire world in 1421 plus acchieving many feats [e.g. North West passage, exploration of Antarctica] centuries before better equiped European expeditions.) is plain bonkers and is based upon rather selective interprutation of rather minimal and unreliable evidence.
 
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Gavin Menzies' theory?
Put it this way: The idea of the Chinese being very vaugly aware of the Americas and conducting more exploration of the Pacific than genrally aknowlaged is plausible. The actual theory proposed by Menzies (i.e. The chinese conducting an utterly massive survey of the entire world in 1421 plus acchieving many feats [e.g. North West passage, exploration of Antarctica] centuries before better equiped European expeditions.) is plain bonkers and is based upon rather selective interprutation of rather minimal and unreliable evidence.

My view as well.
 
Why would they possibly want all documentation of the journey destroyed?

Also, if all documentation of the journey was burned, how can people be sure these voyages took place?

Didn't China go into an isolationist period about then? Something about a palace burning down, and that was an omen that exploration was bad?
 
^Menzies goes so far as to claim that when the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, the "Indians" they interacted with were not Native Americans, but Chinese, and he claims to have found a Chinese settlement in Rhode Island. Not kidding.
 

bard32

Banned
Gavin Menzies' theory?
Put it this way: The idea of the Chinese being very vaugly aware of the Americas and conducting more exploration of the Pacific than genrally aknowlaged is plausible. The actual theory proposed by Menzies (i.e. The chinese conducting an utterly massive survey of the entire world in 1421 plus acchieving many feats [e.g. North West passage, exploration of Antarctica] centuries before better equiped European expeditions.) is plain bonkers and is based upon rather selective interprutation of rather minimal and unreliable evidence.

Thank you. There's a man in Oregon who's actually searching for a Chinese
junk believed to have been wrecked on the Oregon coast. He's come close to
finding it but hasn't succeeded in doing so because of the weather. Winter in
Oregon is bad. It's all rain.
 
^Menzies goes so far as to claim that when the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, the "Indians" they interacted with were not Native Americans, but Chinese, and he claims to have found a Chinese settlement in Rhode Island. Not kidding.

His shoehorning of every archaeological anomaly in North America, from the Westford Knight to the Newport Tower to the Bimini Road, into his theory just makes him look like a crank. That's what they do; they try to fit every single piece together as if some Grand Unified Theory of Crankiness will emerge from the detritus.
 
Gavin Menzies' theory?
Put it this way: The idea of the Chinese being very vaugly aware of the Americas and conducting more exploration of the Pacific than genrally aknowlaged is plausible. The actual theory proposed by Menzies (i.e. The chinese conducting an utterly massive survey of the entire world in 1421 plus acchieving many feats [e.g. North West passage, exploration of Antarctica] centuries before better equiped European expeditions.) is plain bonkers and is based upon rather selective interprutation of rather minimal and unreliable evidence.

That seems about right. I like how Menzies has the Chinese going literally everywhere. Except Europe. Where there are, y'know, records.
 
That seems about right. I like how Menzies has the Chinese going literally everywhere. Except Europe. Where there are, y'know, records.

I began reading 1421, but it just got too silly. Really, surviving ground sloths in South America transplanted in New Zealand by Chinese exploration fleets that somehow don't need supplies?
 
I began reading 1421, but it just got too silly. Really, surviving ground sloths in South America transplanted in New Zealand by Chinese exploration fleets that somehow don't need supplies?

I agree, the idea is just too silly. However the one strength of the book is that it did bring to the public's attention the fact that for a while China was an outward looking empire and at some stages was capable of sending out large fleets.
 
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