from the January 29, 2003 edition The Pinta, Santa Maria, and a Chinese junk? A new book claims the Chinese discovered America in 1421, but historians refute thesis. By Amanda Paulson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor To the Norsemen, the Japanese, and the Carthaginians; to the Irish, the Africans, and a long list of others who, it is claimed, crossed the oceans to America long before 1492, add one more: the Chinese. They toured up and down both coasts of the Americas, established colonies, made maps, and left behind chickens. That, at least, is the theory posed...