One thing I've picked up on in the past year here is this: given the means, there are several possible scenarios concerning alternate settlers of the New World at or before OTL's point in time (the Romans, Vikings, the Irish even). However, the consensus here seems to be that they wouldn't leave much of an impression on the local scene, if any at all.
My question is, WHY? What exactly made the 1492 "discovery" of the New World so special as to spur a sudden interest in westward settlement and colonization, compared to earlier farings like the Vinland/Markland efforts? It can't be just the Spaniards finally kicking the Mohammedans out of Europe around the same time frame. And was the fall of the Byzantines really that crucial to looking westward for shipment of goods? Especially given that it IMHO would not be beyond the pale of possibility for word of lands across the seas westward to spread farther than it did IOTL. And surely it's not merely a technological issue, given that ship design was already progressing toward something capable of crossing the Atlantic and its rough sea-state.
So help me out here, is there a special reason (or combination of reasons) why the Americas finally figured in the interests of European peoples and governments when they did? And why can't those reasons be replicated at any point at all at, say, 500 years before the 15th-16th. centuries?
My question is, WHY? What exactly made the 1492 "discovery" of the New World so special as to spur a sudden interest in westward settlement and colonization, compared to earlier farings like the Vinland/Markland efforts? It can't be just the Spaniards finally kicking the Mohammedans out of Europe around the same time frame. And was the fall of the Byzantines really that crucial to looking westward for shipment of goods? Especially given that it IMHO would not be beyond the pale of possibility for word of lands across the seas westward to spread farther than it did IOTL. And surely it's not merely a technological issue, given that ship design was already progressing toward something capable of crossing the Atlantic and its rough sea-state.
So help me out here, is there a special reason (or combination of reasons) why the Americas finally figured in the interests of European peoples and governments when they did? And why can't those reasons be replicated at any point at all at, say, 500 years before the 15th-16th. centuries?