Posted on 03/07/2002 7:00:38 PM PST by ex-Texan
Chinese explorers 'discovered America'
By Alfred Lee
STRAITS TIMES EUROPE BUREAU
LONDON - When explorer Christopher Columbus landed in America in 1492, he was 72 years behind a Chinese expeditionary force, which had already made its way to the area.
And although Captain James Cook was credited with discovering Australia for the British Empire in 1770, the Chinese had mapped the island continent 337 years earlier.
Sailing in 1,000-foot-long ships with nine massive junk-style sails, the Chinese also circumnavigated the world a century before explorer Ferdinand Magellan's epic journey, and reached South America.
These disclosures are at the centre of findings that British historian and map expert Gavin Menzies will disclose to the prestigious Royal Geographical Society (RGS) at a conference next week.
The former Royal Navy submarine commander will be speaking to more than 200 diplomats, historians and academics from around the world, including from the United States, Australia and South America.
The audience at the March 15 conference will also include top navigators and chart makers.
An unprecedented 85 per cent of RGS members who have received an outline of Mr Menzies' findings, which follow 14 years of research, have already booked their seats.
Mr Menzies said the Chinese discoveries were made by ships of the Emperor Zhui Di.
The fleet, under the command of top Chinese admiral Zheng He, set sail in the early 1420s to bring back treasures from foreign lands.
The ships were the best and the fleet the biggest in the world at the time.
At the RGS conference, Mr Menzies will unveil literary and archaeological evidence that the Chinese ships, using accurate star charts for navigation, circum-navigated the world.
The evidence includes travel manuscripts, including maps, written in 1434 by Venetian merchant Nicolo da Conti, who was aboard one of the Chinese vessels.
The Venetian wrote that he sailed from China to a great land mass to the south - Mr Menzies will present evidence that this was the continent known today as Australia.
Other maps made by officers on the admiral's ships include those of America, the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan, which links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
'The writings and logs of Christopher Columbus, James Cook and Ferdinand Magellan acknowledge they had and used maps,' Mr Menzies said.
'The question is: Who drew those maps? The answer is: The Chinese, who were the first to rule the oceans, with Zheng He's ships, each crewed by 500 or more men.'
Interesting post. Thanks.
Can this be true? Sounds rather fantastic.
Perhaps our understanding of history is just beginning.
If that's true, how come we didn't have Chinese restaurants
here before the 19th century?
Lying %#@^&%'s
Judging from the way the government works down there, yeah, I think it does.
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