Columbus did not discover America

Quote: Nareed

Then there's the why. Today you know Europe is across the Atlantic and Asia across the Pacific. In ancient times this wasn't known. For all you knew you'd fall off the map (literally) if you sailed far enough away from land.

The ancient Greeks knew that the planet was spherical and they knew how big it was. So it wasn't a question of falling off the map. As far as they knew the western hemisphere was a "water hemisphere" possibly with islands.

The experts to Ferdnand and Isabella said that they shouldn't fund Columbus since it would take 4 or 5 months to sail to Asia, and ships had no ability to catch enough fish, get enough vitamins, and carry fresh water to cover that duration of a voyage. Columbus believed that he could sail it in 4 to 5 weeks.

It is believed that the Toscanelli map of 1474 had some influence on Columbus. Cippangu was a name for Japan.


Even if the map was correct, 110 degrees of longitude at 15 degrees latitude is still 7400 statute miles. So CC's second major assumption was that the circumference of the world was much smaller than it was in reality. CC believed it was only 2300 statute miles from Canaries to Japan. It is in reality roughly 3400 miles from the Canaries to the Bahamas.

For the desperate explorer with dollar signs of a short cut to the Spice Lands that avoids all those tedious and dangerous miles through Islamic controlled lands, there is only that first step and the madness to take it.

The journey to the gold fields of California for Easterners was bad enough but many came from China and from Australia and Germany. San Francisco Bay became cluttered with abandoned sailing ships as entire crews, including Captains, jumped ship to head for the gold fields.

Portugese vessels were barely seaworthy. And sailing orders at the time were often from one dangerous reef to another dangerous reef because that is all that was known to exist.

Is the madness of malnutrition and dehydration any worse than the madness of cabin fever and half-split frying pans? Is he who steps out of the line of march to rest any less or more desperate when it takes him several hours to step back into the solitary line of desperate men climbing dead horse pass?

Quote: Fleastiff

For the desperate explorer with dollar signs of a short cut to the Spice Lands that avoids all those tedious and dangerous miles through Islamic controlled lands, there is only that first step and the madness to take it.

Bartolomeu Dias passed the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, thus proving that the Indian Ocean was accessible by sea. Supposedly the knowledge that the Portuguese would someday reach the Indies gave the Kings of Spain the desperation to fund Christopher Columbus's mad idea. There is evidence that King Ferdnand did not spend much of his own money to back CC's first voyage.

It took a few years (until 1513) ,when Jorge Álvares became the first Portuguese to land in China.

Isabella died in 1504 after CC's 4th and final voyage. CC died in 1506 still believing he had reached Asia. Amerigo Vespucci made several voyages between 1499 and 1502 and coined the term "New World" and eventually became the namesake for the new continents. The map below drawn was drawn in 1502 .

It takes a long time to learn that things like rounding Cape Horn or Cape of Good Hope can be easier in Winter than in Summer and that shortcuts can be safer. It also takes time to develope really seaworthy vessels.

Quote: Pacomartin

The ancient Greeks knew that the planet was spherical and they knew how big it was. So it wasn't a question of falling off the map. As far as they knew the western hemisphere was a "water hemisphere" possibly with islands.

The educated people in the ancient world knew the world was round and how big it was, yes. But you'd be surprised how few in ancient times were educated at all.

It was the Arab world who had Traveling Scholars whose dress indicated their occupation and who would visit foreign, but still generally Islamic lands, to disseminate knowledge amongst the elite.

Yet it is often a matter of defining "education". People who knew a trade were valuable. A canon maker or a barrel maker was educated. Coffee shops prospered as places of general education.

University educations and real scholarly pursuits were so enmeshed in religious control of institutions that formulae were often encoded and encyphered and some astronomical theories left unpublicized or published posthumously.