America would have been discovered within 8 years if Columbus had never lived. Pedro Cabral, sailing for India from Portugal was blown off course and “discovered” Brazil in 1500.
It’s remarkable how stubbornly ignorant Columbus was about the distance he was proposing to travel. The earth’s circumference had been computed with remarkable accuracy by a Greek scholar named Eratosthenes before 200 B.C. — about 1,700 years before Columbus’ voyage.
Great article. The author failed to factor in gold. What if the industrious, Protestant work-ethic Puritans and English had settled in Mexico, Central America, and South America and found the abundant gold?
So many Spanish explorers were sent specifically in search of gold, not to establish colonies. Would England and the Netherlands have abandoned colonization and sought the wealth of gold if Spain had conquered North America?
Would Spain have persevered building permanent colonies in North America if there were no gold to be found there?