Factoid of the day

I have seen (but not read) advertisements on a book that claimed China discovered the world in the early 1400's.

well, it's fake.

ScienceNotes says:

Gavin Menzies has a number of dubious hypotheses about historical events. One is that the Chinese explored large parts of the world in the fifteenth century. He suggests that Ferdinand Magellan, Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus, and others followed Chinese maps. Others have taken Menzies’ idea and run with it.
In 2006, Paul Chiasson published a book, Island of the Seven Cities, explaining how the Chinese settled in Nova Scotia in 1421. As evidence, he shows an aerial photograph that he says was taken in the 1920s, showing traces of roads and foundations.
This web site, The ’1421′ Myth Exposed, takes on those myths.

here is one example of how science destroys the mythmaking:

Almost all scholars – except Mr Menzies and his team – agree that there was no connection between the Red and Mediterranean Seas in the 15th century. Remnants of a connection that may have been open in the early 12th century remained. But even that connection was shallow and relatively narrow. For even supposing it to have maintained the width of the 6th century BCE canal of Darius (sufficient for two triremes to row past each other), that would not entail a width of greater than 100’. One can see that from the dimensions of the reconstruction trireme, the Olympias, as recounted in J. S. Morrison, J. F. Coates, N. B. Rankov, The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship, 2nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p.270 . Each trireme with oars extended would have taken up about 12m of width. Two passing, allowing a close but generous shave, would have taken up 30m or 100’. That’s 50’ narrower than the 1869 Suez Canal and 80’ narrower than the beam of Zheng He’s treasure ships as propounded by Mr Menzies.

The following drawing assumes, however, that miraculously in 1432 Arab engineers completed a canal that was as wide and deep as the one Ferdinand de Lesseps was to complete with more primitive western industrial technology 437 years later. De Lesseps’ 1869 Suez Canal (cross section in red) is shown below with a typical early-19th century wooden warship of the largest size in the middle and around it a cross section of putative Zheng He baochuan to the Ming Shih dimensions uncritically taken by Mr Menzies to be exact measurements.

But like the "aliens built the pyramid" stories, calculating facts is too hard on the brain: better to believe in magic.

but in this case, it could be dangerous propaganda fake history, since China is busy trying to claim every area of the world that they can, and they could use this to claim Australia as once part of China (something they are also starting to do with the Philippines)...