Jan. 24-25

We woke up and went about our business without realizing that we had missed the International Dateline. I think that I heard a bump when we crossed it, but am not sure. We are not especially busy so we haven’t worried about what might have been accomplished had we experienced a January 24. 

I wanted to spend a bit of time on exploration. According to conventional history, there was lots of that going on over here. In fact, I’m somewhat of an expert on the subject. In the 5th grade, I dressed in dyed nylons and  an “explorer hat” and carried a wooden sword while speaking about Columbus and other famous explorers to several classes at Multnomah School. I moved through Columbus discovering America to other Voyages of Discovery with the strength of the Pope’s Treaty of Tordesillas dividing the world between Spain and Portugal. In 1494, the Spaniards unleashed a number of explorers to gather available gold and silver, subdue and Christianize the natives, and establish colonies. Portugal was able to colonize Brazil in accord with the Pope’s guidelines.

Around the same time Bartolomeu Dias sailed around Africa in 1488, trying to find a way to India. In 1498, Vasco de Gama made it around Africa to India. It wasn’t clear to me at the time (5th grade) that these voyages were prompted by the Ottomans taking control of Istanbul and blocking the overland trade routes from the east. Columbus headed West to find the Indies, not knowing that the Americas would get in his way . Dias and de Gama headed around Africa to get to the same destination. Over the next couple of centuries, the British, French and Dutch joined the trading, colonizing, Christianizing efforts. There was lots of discovery going on.

There were several asterisks. Current theory is that Asians moved across the Bering Strait and discovered America thousands of years earlier. The Vikings landed in Newfoundland 500 years before Columbus. Amerigo Vespucci arrived in the Americas a few years after Columbus, but got the continents named for him. At least, Columbus was able to name the Indians, thinking that he had arrived at the East Indies. The existence of the South American sweet potato in the South Sea Islands suggests that there was more travel going on. As I wrote earlier, there were thousands of years of exploration and settlement going on in the South Seas before the Europeans knew they were there.

Another new addition to my fifth grade education… the Chinese were very active before the Europeans thought about exploring. According to Chinese history, Genghis Khan discovered Europe in 1223. That serves the Europeans right since they later “discovered” lots of areas where people already lived. The Chinese sailor Zheng He dominated Chinese trade from 1405 to 1433. He commanded 63 ships that were about 10 times the size of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. His fleet traveled and traded in Japan, the South Sea Islands and India….before they were discovered.  For whatever reason, a new emperor turned his focus inward and the Chinese discontinued lots of their voyages.

History seems more complicated than it was in 1952….or in lots of western textbooks.