Who discovered North America ?

If the semantics of the word “discoverer” or the word discovering" has to meet two conditions - (1.) to be the first one who has arrived and (2.) to know for sure what exactly has been discovered -, then nobody has ever discovered North America. :stuck_out_tongue:

Perhaps … than again … 1421: The Year China Discovered America

… and the Chinese likely were aware of the geography of the Western Hemisphere … at least in a broad/general sense.

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Here are some facts … draw your own conclusions. :slight_smile:

I was living and working in Pond Inlet Nunavut before coming to China.

pond-inlet-nunavut-map.png

In bidding farewell to my boss … a middle aged Inuit man … born in an igloo … probably one of the last Inuit people to be born in such circumstances … he shared an oral Inuit legend … “The Chinese will be back”

12 years later the echo of his story is carried on the wind for all those with eyes to see or ears to hear. The message is crystal clear and the intensity of the message is both blinding and deafening … in essence … "The Chinese are back!

The only difference between the former and the latter is the conjugation of the verb “to be” … in the former “will be” and the latter “are”.

As JSS so astutely wrote a month or so ago … “Truth is destructive”

It is indeed … it is … i n d e e d !

Martin Waldseemüller (1470-1520), Universalis Cosmographia, Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map which was the first to show the Americas.

This is rejected by historians as a fiction.

They may have heard of this legend. But not everything that has been said and heard is true.

Of course!

Anything less would be suicidal. :slight_smile:

The Chinese ventured out into the world about 600 years ago … triggered a quantum shift in Western consciousness … ergo …the renaissance.

The Chinese went back home and closed their doors to the outside world until recently.

The Chinese are once again going out into the world … expect another quantum shift in Western consciousness. :slight_smile:

Read my opening quote.

Most Chinese historians also reject the alleged Chinese discovery of America as a fiction.

:question:

Is that your opening post, Pilgrim-Seeker Tom?

Nope! :slight_smile:

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I was born there… I guess you’ve never really taken in what I’ve said in my posts.

Its not so much about nations claiming to have discovered countries and continents, but more about what they do when they get there - the migrants seem to think that they have discovered Europe… because they seem to be trying to take over.

Sorry, Mags, but I have not read all your 16959 posts. I would like to …, if I had enough time. :slight_smile:

To me, a discovery must or should have to do with objectivity like for example a scientific discovery.

One should know “something” about the discovered object before the discovery.

The question is what exactly one should know about it before the discovery.

It’s interesting to note that the Chinese map has as much if not more detail of the east coast of North America as it does the west, and it’s extremely unlikely they sailed all the way over there, since as we all know there is no northwest passage. Much more likely they just got these maps from some other nation, yeah?

Perhaps!

OTH … do we really know there was no northwest passage 600 years ago? The oral Inuit legend in Pond Inlet Nunavut suggests otherwise, yeah! :slight_smile:

The timing of the disappearance of the Dorset culture coincides with the timing of the Zheng He travels … generally speaking.

Certainly makes a boat load or two of Chinese people abandoned somewhere in the Arctic a credible theory. :slight_smile:

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OK, so there was a northwest passage 600 years ago that doesn’t exist anymore for some reason. And the Chinese discovered it. And didn’t tell anybody. And used it to sail all the way around North America to accurately map Florida, Cuba, and the east coast of South America. That’s all possible I guess, but I still maintain it’s much more likely they just got the maps from somebody- for example European traders.

That is indeed much more likely.

OK … you win! :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

Why do you give up so early?