What would happen?
What would happen?
This.So the land bridge from Asia doesn't exist? I mean, there were "Native Americans" here long before the white Roman Catholics, Nordics, and Puritans. It was discovered, just not by Caucasians, long before Columbus showed up.
Indeed. A super Black Plague, Mongol hordes at the English Channel, that sort of thing. It is likely the New World was visited a number of times prior to 1492. Certainly the Norse, possibly Irish monks or even (much less probable, and by accident) Romans or Phonicians. But what you need for OTL Age of Discovery of the Americas is the ship building and navigational technology to actually get there and return with some regularity, which itself requires the economic base to build such ships.
Island hopping from the North Sea to Iceland to Greenland to Vinland. They weren't making long-distance transoceanic voyages.Basically, unless there is an event that makes it impossible for Europe to build good ships until 1800, this is impossible. The way winds and currents work in the Atlantic mean that if you have a decent quality ship there, it will move towards America a lot more easily than away from it. Get blown to America and discovered.
How else would the Vikings have ended up there in 1010?
- BNC
Island hopping from the North Sea to Iceland to Greenland to Vinland. They weren't making long-distance transoceanic voyages.
Is there a way to make Christian and Muslim relations friendlier so that Portugal doesn't have an economic incentive to circumnavigate Africa? If Europe could access the trade route used by the arabs, then there would have been no need to look for an alternate trade route. Alternatively, if camel trade had lower prices with the north, then there would be no need for a blind and vast search to circumvent it.
I doubt that. Europeans were very bigoted on religious issues and this not help to create better relationships by 15th century. Easier is just butterfly Islam away. Perhaps Mohammed dies very young and so not found new religion.
That seems workable. IIRC, the main problem for Columbus was funding a project most people assumed would end with his ships running out of supplies and starving to death before they ever reached China. Keep the Silk Road open, and no one will pay to find another route.I doubt that. Europeans were very bigoted on religious issues and this not help to create better relationships by 15th century. Easier is just butterfly Islam away. Perhaps Mohammed dies very young and so not found new religion.
How about Spain?Seems overly broad. The Venetians traded with them fine through Egypt and Turkey. It's the Portuguese specifically that were locked out.