Chinese Explorers 'Discovered America'?

FLY9999 writes: "According to British historian and map expert Gavin Menzies, Chinese explorers discovered America way before Columbus did. He will disclose his information to the prestigious Royal Geographical Society (RGS) at a conference next week."

Erm, great.

[autopr0n]

I hope this doesn't mean that they are going to claim us as a "renegade state" now...

Does this mean. . .

[jchawk]

All your Americas are belong to Chinese?

wouldn't surprise me in the least

[denny_d]

The greatest Chinese Navigator,Cheng Ho, rocked China's boat so much, they closed the ports...
dgd

hmmm

[Richard_at_work]

explains a lot................ So, has anyone come up with facts on who DIDNT discover america before Columbus? America is starting to become like my car keys, everyone knows where they are except me.

Kewl

[l0wland]

Someday they'll dig up a Chinese skeleton in California, with a Viking-axe stuck in it's skull.

Re:Lots of people beat Columbus

[Czarnian]

Alex Chiu [alexchiu.com] used his time-machine, discovered America 13,000 years ago and was living forever until the magnetic poles flipped and his head exploded.

Re:Vikings

[leviramsey]

Vikings rule! That's all I can say!

Thor decides he wants some earth loving. So he turns himself into a dashing young human warrior. He picks up this beautiful princess and they have a wild night. The next morning, Thor decides to reveal himself. "I am Thor," he says. "You're thor," the princess replies, "I'm tho thor, I don't think I can pith."

America doesn't even exist.

[91degrees]

All these films about things that happen in America are just a myth. The country doesn't exist. It's just a children's story, like Atlantis. There is no mythical continent across the atlantic. Think about it. If there really is a country there, then surely if you stood at the west coast of Ireland you would be able to see it. You can't. If you can't see something that you're looking at directly then it isn't there.

I'm sure some people will disagree with me. Well, I ask you this - Have you been there? Have you actually seen this place? Why did nobody ever mention it until really quite recently? And I mean the past 100 years or so. I challenge anyone to find a resource more recent than 1900 that indicates that the place exists.

It was clearly an invention of European governments to use as an excuse to devalue their currencies in the 1920's. They didn't want to blame themselves, so they invented another country to blame.

Face it. America is a ridiculous liberal myth.

Waiting for americans

[chefren]

Great! Now we are just waiting for (north) americans to discover the rest of the world!

Re:My experiences in China

[-douggy]

So, you've been to LA recently :o) *ducks*

I have the same problem ...

[dustpuppy]

When playing Civ 3 starting out in North America, every friggin country discovers me before I discover them ... damn them.

old slashdot archive

[Graspee_Leemoor]

First Post! (Score: 1, Interesting)
by Leif Ericson in 1001 (http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/07343. html [encyclopedia.com])

All your women and chattels are belong to us!

yesssss (Score: 0)
by Zheng He in 1420 (http://members.tripod.com/khleo/chengho.ht m [tripod.com])

too slow to catch me, bitches!
Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? ;)

Frosty Piss! (Score: -1, overrated)
by Christopher Columbus in 1492 (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/ modeng/public/BroTrue.html [virginia.edu])

I claim this first post in the name of exploring trolls everywhere!

First (Score: -1, redundant)
by Amerigo Vespucci in 1497 (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15384b.htm [newadvent.org])

suck my cock, Columbus. you're mother goes down on me reel good!

graspee

circumnavigated the world

[epsalon]

Anybody else read that as "circumvented the world"?
We all know the chinese are real good at that... Why else do they have their own DVD zone?

That's okay

[billcopc]

I don't mind, the Chinese can have USA, as long as they don't 'invade' Canada, else we'll have to unleash an army of Great Beavers upon them.

and the first Chinese Buffet opened in 1435

[theBunkinator]

in a small strip mall in NJ, as now became evident from leftover fortune cookies found at a nearby dry cleaner.

In Other News:

[jtwilliams]

When explorer Christopher Columbus landed in America in 1492, he was 72 years behind a Chinese expeditionary force, which had already made its way to the area.

And although Captain James Cook was credited with discovering Australia for the British Empire in 1770, the Chinese had mapped the island continent 337 years earlier.

Sailing in 1,000-foot-long ships with nine massive junk-style sails, the Chinese also circumnavigated the world a century before explorer Ferdinand Magellan's epic journey, and reached South America.


Although it is widely believed that Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon, it turns out that the Chinese had sailed to the moon 200 years earlier in a primitive capsule propelled by nothing more than junk-style solar sails.

Re:hmmm

[drsoran]

Hopefully EAST from Asia!

Don't be absurd. If they sailed EAST from Asia they'd fall off the edge of the Earth.

Of course the Chinese discovered America...

[GutterBunny]

...What else would explain the 700 year old chow mein in my refrigerator?

but Europe's score is still higher in the long run

[Rocko Bonaparte]

Sure, the Chinese finished researching "monarchy," "compass," and "gunpowder" before the rival European civilizations. However, the Europeans managed to steal the technology and upgraded their barracks to produce the new gun-equipped units. The Chinese countered by building the Great Wall wonder, which boosted their score significantly. The Europeans, always at war with each other, weren't as successful. However, they managed to eek out metallurgy, which nullified the Great Wall wonder. Soon after, they started building galleons and frigates.

All the European players found they couldn't build anymore cities on their part of the map, and decided to load the settlers on some boats and go romping around in the ocean to the west. They had not been explored there before. Sure, they had loaded some caravans onto boats to boost their gold intake, but they only sent them to the south and east.

Previously, the Chinese had sent a small fleet skirting around the world to get a good feel of where all the other civilizations were, but they hadn't put any settlers on their ships [big booboo]. So when the Europeans found this new land mass, it was a free-for-all. That is, with the exception of barbarians wandering into their towns. So they built up some musketeer units and captured the precious barbarian diplomat and got his ransom. That changed the momentum and put the Europeans squarely in the lead, later on leading to riflemen and mechanized infantry. However, the game's still open since nobody's launched a ship to Alpha Centauri yet.