Who really discovered America? The Chinese?

[razorsharp]

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A copy of a 600-year-old map found in a second-hand book shop is the key to proving that the Chinese, not Christopher Columbus, were the first to discover the New World, a controversial British historian claims.
The document is purportedly an 18th century copy of a 1418 map charted by Chinese Admiral Zheng He, which appears to show the New World in some detail.

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<p>Read more: [‘Who</a> Discovered America?’: Controversial historian Gavin Menzies claims Chinese reached New World first | Mail Online](<a href=“'Who Discovered America?': Controversial historian Gavin Menzies claims Chinese reached New World first | Daily Mail Online”>'Who Discovered America?': Controversial historian Gavin Menzies claims Chinese reached New World first | Daily Mail Online) </p>

<p>As Columbus day approaches maybe we should be celebrating Zheng He Day instead.</p>

[coureur]

<p>Some Chinese guy showed up 70 years before Columbus? Big deal. It’s been well documented for decades that Vikings not only sailed to North America but actually settled here some 500 years before Columbus.</p>

<p>[L’Anse</a> aux Meadows - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L’Anse_aux_Meadows]L’Anse”>L'Anse aux Meadows - Wikipedia)</p>

[Lergnom]

<p>Thing is, if you go the route of earliest outsiders finding America, then you have to admit there were already people here. The point about Columbus - who, remember, never touched N. America only touched S. America once - is the European discovery of America. </p>

<p>That the Chinese may have visited doesn’t have any meaning for our existence. That the Vikings seem to have been here may have more meaning because some people claim they influenced the various tribes in the northeast in fundamentals like language and culture. </p>

<p>But there were lots of people here. The discoverers of this land came over the land bridge from Asia tens of thousands of years ago. Evidence suggests they moved in spurts, sometimes by boat, and reached the southern coast of Chile well before other areas had been populated.</p>

[Vladenschlutte]

<p>I think there’s some amount of evidence that Egyptians discovered the Americas in the realm of 1000-500BC (the people who claim this have a more precise year - I just don’t remember it), and also that the Irish discovered it at some point before the Vikings. </p>

<p>Though most conclusively, the Vikings were first.</p>

[sosomenza]

<p>It they did. I’m sure it was harder to get in.</p>

[musicamusica]

<p>Who “discovered” Europe? And who “discovered” China? Just wondering.</p>

[Marian]

<p>There were probably plenty of people from other parts of the world who found their way to the Americas, either by accident or by design, on various occasions long before Columbus.</p>

<p>The significance of Columbus is that his arrival led to a lasting presence of people from another continent in the Americas. No other arrival since that of the people we now call Native Americans had such an impact.</p>

[ucbalumnus]

<p>Isn’t it obvious?</p>

<p>Q: Who really discovered America?</p>

<p>A: The ancestors of the Native Americans.</p>