Is the book 1421 true?

So is ‘1421’ fact or fiction? BILL RICHARDSON, HISTORIAN OF CARTOGRAPHY: ‘1421’ is fiction, absolute fiction. LUIGI BONOMI, LITERARY AGENT: It’s fact. It’s not fiction, it’s fact.

Did the Chinese come to America in 1421?

Book Says Voyagers Preceded Columbus by 70 Years Columbus discovered America in 1492, any elementary school student will tell you. But an amateur historian says Columbus was about 70 years too late. The Chinese beat him to it in 1421, says Gavin Menzies, author of 1421, The Year China Discovered America.

Did China circumnavigate the world?

Theories about pre-Columbian contacts between the Old World and the New abound, and now a British amateur historian says he has gathered evidence showing that, in a double challenge to accepted history, the Chinese beat Columbus to America by 72 years and also circumnavigated the globe a century before the Magellan …

Did China discover the Americas?

It asserts that a Muslim-Chinese eunuch-mariner from the Ming Dynasty discovered America — 71 years before Columbus. Zheng He was a real historical figure, who commanded a huge armada of wooden sailing vessels in the early 15th century.

Did China ever discover Australia?

There is no tangible evidence that Chinese explorers (or traders or any other Chinese for that matter) did land in Australia before the European exploration of the continent began.

Why is the year 1421 important?

Overview. On March 8, 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China to “proceed all the way to the ends of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas.” When the fleet returned home in October 1423, the emperor had fallen, leaving China in political and economic chaos.

Why did China stop exploring?

First, the Yongle Emperor who sponsored Zheng He’s first six voyages died in 1424. His son, the Hongxi Emperor, was much more conservative and Confucianist in his thought, so he ordered the voyages stopped. (There was one last voyage under Yongle’s grandson, Xuande, in 1430-33.)

Who was the first white person to come to Australia?

While Indigenous Australians have inhabited the continent for tens of thousands of years, and traded with nearby islanders, the first documented landing on Australia by a European was in 1606. The Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon landed on the western side of Cape York Peninsula and charted about 300 km of coastline.