This is my first post to my "Dai Nippon Obsession" category. It isn't about Japan. Maybe I need to broaden the topic category?
I had heard that explorers from China had reached the east coast of Africa, but this is even more impressive historical news. The world would have been a much different place if the Emperors of China had not given up on exploration.
(That is the unwritten epilogue to this story - The Emperor of China at the time banned further explorations and ordered the naval fleet to be dismantled. Think about that the next time someone complains about the waste of money on space exploration.)
Perhaps the name of China - "Central Country" had an adverse affect on the idea of exploring the rest of the world.
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Chinese explorers 'discovered America'
"LONDON - 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.
These disclosures are at the centre of findings that British historian and map expert Gavin Menzies will disclose to the prestigious Royal Geographical Society (RGS) at a conference next week."
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For further reading on this topic and other explorations of man, I highly recommend the book "The Discoverers" by Daniel Boorstein. Don't be put off if that sounds like an academic book. I found it to be very easy to read, very well written, and very interesting! It was "a page turner" in the idiom of book reviews.
11:30:19 AM 
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