Posted on 08/13/2009 6:27:39 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Did Chinese sailors really discover America before Columbus? A new exhibition sets the scene, presenting new evidence that lends support to the assumptions made in "1421: The Year China Discovered America" by Gavin Menzies.
"1421: The Year China Sailed the World," in Singapore in a special tent near the Esplanade (until Sept. 11), is primarily a celebration of Admiral Zheng He's seven maritime expeditions between 1405 and 1423. With a fleet of 317 ships and 28,000 men, Zheng He is generally acknowledged as one of the great naval explorers, but how far he actually went remains a matter of dispute.
With original artifacts, videos and interactive exhibits, "1421" aims to take visitors through Zheng He's life story, setting the historical and economic context of his voyages. Against this factual background, Menzies's theories are presented, along with new evidence, mainly maps, backing his claims.
The exhibition starts in Hunnan (China) in 1382, with a narrative space giving some background on Zheng He's youth. Zheng, a Chinese Muslim, was captured as a child in wartime by the Ming army and made a eunuch to serve at court. He became a scholar and a trusted adviser to the third Ming emperor, Zhu Di, who sent him on a mission to "proceed all the way to the ends of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas."
When the giant fleet returned in 1423, however, the emperor had fallen. With that change of leadership, China began a policy of isolationism that would last hundreds of years. The large ships were left to rot at their moorings, and most of the records of the great journeys were destroyed (though some argue the records still exist).
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Because they want to entice the offshore IT companies from Bangalore and Mumbai to move their American headquarters there.
-PJ
It's technically IN THE HEART OF THE ALLEGHENIES (or something like that). It's pretty far West too. It's also due South of Erie PA.
Jefferson suggested a number of names for future states--I forget if "Indiana" was among them. A couple of the names eventually used resemble Jefferson's but I don't know if any are exactly like his. His plan was for smaller states than were eventually formed by Congress.
Yeah, him, too. His ship landed in Utah.
If the earth is flat, as most post-modern scientists agree, then the Chinese couldn’t have come from the other side.
During the 13 and 1400 hundreds the Chinese had an awesome fleet. Ships about twice the size of Magellans They were trading all throughtout the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Islands.
In the early 1500s the emperor pulled the fleet back home under the belief that everyone should come to China to trade and they didn't need to go out.
This move may have cost them the western hemisphere and certainly opened up the Philippines to Magellan, if he hadn't lost his head.
Otherwise, the honor goes to the Vikings or the Celts or someone else.
Regarding Jefferson's ideas about the size the states in the Ohio Country (Brit. term for today's Lower Midwest) might be he just happened to have some erroneous information at hand that suggested far heavier existing settlement than was really the case.
I've run into a variety of claims for "New Wales" in numerous early 19th century reports. This was supposed to exist somewhere between what is now Indianapolis, Columbus, Cincinatti and Louisville, and to have been successfully settled by various groups dating back into the 1600s. Obviously the place never existed ~ and the Collins-Richey Book continues to be the definitive reference for early settlement throughout that region.
By the time folks got around to carving up Ohio, and then Indiana Territory, there weren't enough people in what is today's Indiana to justify any kind of state (less than 5000 actual settlers, most of whom I have identified in my own genealogical records, or in the Collins-Richey Book). Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc. were equally devoid of people in that narrow window of opportunity for drawing state lines.
Even as late as 1836 when the Mormons made their big move from Ohio to the Mississippi River, they could roll through Indiana in about a day and not encounter anyone. Fortunately for the Mormons they were traveling between the Great Limberlost (a swamp in Northern Indiana not fully settled until the 20th century) and the White River bottoms (which weren't put to the plough until the 1840s and 1850s), else they'd been robbed by Shawnee stragglers or a variety of brigands who kept their attention focused on the boats coming down the Ohio River.
Two things happened to overcome the lack of people ~ Jefferson's party (the Democrats) quit trying to turn most of Indiana and Wisconsin into an Indian Reservation for the Eastern Indians (realizing, of course, that Oklahoma was far and away a better site ~ fewer swamps, more rabbits, sufficient deer, and away from white settlements which seemed to have a particularly fatal attraction for Indians). That one act meant that previous land titles issued for large tracts were good so land sales to white settlers could proceed.
Then there was the abolition of limited indenture which meant "free labor" would not have to compete with "slave labor" on large estates as had happened in the South. This attracted "anti slavery" Southerners from throughout the Piedmont areas of Georgia and the Carolanas as well as Germans who wanted to get in on a good deal. The state of Indiana exploded in population in the immediate pre-Civil War period (only to bust economically). No state provided a greater percentage of its young men to the Union Army in the 1860s.
Virginia gave a lot of land grants to its citizens in what is now Ohio (some or all for Revolutionary War service), so there were a lot of Virginian settlers in southern and central Ohio. Descendants of those settlers later settled in Indiana.
The Northwest Ordinance provided for at least three and no more than five states to be formed from the area--they didn't know if enough people would ever want to live in the northern portions (present-day Michigan and Wisconsin) to justify separate states.
Really ~ I've got material in our family genealogy that shows the same individual in two locations simultaneously as far as the census is concerned.
No in depth researcher believes the population counts for Indiana until you get into the 1840s.
Chlistopher Corumbus randed on a Callibean isrand.
All immaterial. Columbus' voyage is the one that matters, because it's the one that stuck.
I cannot imagine why more attention isn’t paid to the whole Egyptian coke deal. Like it’s a conspiracy of silence.
I thought the talking point was the Christopher Columbus didn’t “discover” anything because there were already people here.
At least it was 20 years ago when the Politically Correct first started getting holidays deemed “politically incorrect”.
If we can’t can’t call “Native Americans” Indians and people from India are known as “Asian” or “Hindi”, who ARE the Indians?
There is, however, an ancient city near Lake Poopo(?) in the Andes that's just up the valley from where the first coke was domesticated. It's laid out the way Plato said it was.
So, did Andean coke dealers haul shipments to Egypt in ancient times?
American League baseball team in Cleveland?
My great-grandfather was listed twice on the 1860 census of Virginia. Hard to believe that ACORN was already in business that early.
ACORN definitely has a foundation in American history ~ but so does the Mafia.
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