This topic has been hashed over before, but I found this article interesting none the less…
The article says:
Leaving aside the bit about Columbus, why would Zheng He be be known as Sinbad? Is it really true that he was called this? In Persian the name implies that he comes from India.
But Aladdin really was from “China,” it says so in the original story. And his magician enemy was a North African. The cartoon was clueless about this, but I saw a live-action “1001 Nights” which did use an Asian and a black actor, respectively.
Zheng He is also known as Ma Sanbao. Sanbao=Sinbad?
that said, Gavin Menzies is onto something, but most of his claims are ludicrous. I do believe that the Chinese went to Australia, as they have found wrecks of junks there, but circumnavigating the earth??? With little in the way of preparation??? After all it took Henry the Navigator many years before his sailors were up to snuff navigationwise.
Mmmmm… I’m leary of any article discussing China where the author doesn’t know that Nanjing from Nanking isn’t a name change. Or one that takes the words of his tour guide as absolute history.
The historical record is pretty good on Zheng He sailing an absolutely massive fleet around SE Asia with some forays through the Malacca Straits and beyond, but any information I’ve come across (from historians outside of China) say his time was short lived and definitely not even involving the west coast of Africa, let alone the Americas. Recent finds include a graveyard of several ships off of Brunei, but they were all from near the same time period, ~30 years.
It’d be great if they found something proving either way who Sinbad was really based on.
The Zheng He story really IS interesting. And controversial, too, because if he really did achieve what is attributed to he and his fleets, it undermines the singularity of European navigational accomplishments.
There are some farily convincing Western scholars, and mainstream news sources that have written about Zheng He’s travel’s well beyond the East Asian region - at least to the East Coast of Africa, and some would argue - far beyond:
I saw a documentary about the book 1421 on CNN yesterday. According to the author, Gavin Menzies, a huge Chinese fleet left China to circumnavigate and map the entire world. Menzies says that his findings are rejected by most historians, even Chinese historians. Something sounds fishy here. Why would you reject something that could count in your favor?
Could it be that this book will serve as future justification for global domination by China? Could it be that these facts have been fabricated for such a purpose? I don’t think it too far fetched to suspect a conspiracy.
China has a huge population. It’s standard of living is improving. Where are all the resources China will need for the next century going to come from?
Already, there are large, well-established Chinese expatriate communities around the world. Isn’t this virtual colonization?
Furthermore, the people who discovered America were the Native Americans.
Because it’s blatantly wrong and would make you look like an ass if you supported it perhaps?
Considering Menzies can’t even read Chinese and made a lot of screwups, I’d take his book with more than a small pinch of salt.
A review
I haven’t read it, but I saw Menzies interviewed on CNN this weekend. A new version of the book is being released with more evidence.
They got as far as the Spratly Islands then disappeared but that achievement is the basis to their claim to that two-foot high cluster of coral. As far as the Americas is concerned, everyone knows it was the English but we dumped a bunch of French Alliance Francaise people and economists off on Hispaniola en route and left them to develop that island to the utmost of their capability; the results of which can now be seen in the bustling, hyper-modern, ultra safe metropolis of Port-au-Prince.
BTW: also saw that Menzies interview and was not terribly convinced.
BroonAristide
That Italian bloke named Amerigo Vespucci discovered America, but he did not set foot on that rather large island.
This message was brought to you by the combined intelligence of Dangermouse and MaPoSquid.
Copyright 2004. All rights reserved
I always thought Amerigo invented America. 
Read the guys book out of curiousity. Some of his arguments can also be read on his website http://www.1421.tv.
Some rather funny arguments:
-Chinese-speaking villages in Peru
-95 geographical names in Peru which are Chinese words
-“Great wall of Chimu” in Peru resembles Great Wall in China
-Chinese-speaking colony between the Russian and Sacramento Rivers
-San Diego Country Park: markings on tree cut by Chinese explorers
-Chinese ruled over Mexico 
-Navajo Indians understand Chinese
-“Peru” is Chinese and mean “white mist”
-“Chile” is Chinese and means “dependent territory”
-American Indian names that are Chinese: Indians=Yin Dian (peopel from Yin [China]); Inca=Yinca (people who live in Yin); Inuit=Yin Uit (people originating in Yin) 
:loco: :loco: :help: :loco:
Well,
It seems that the Viking Lief Ericson beat both the Chinese and Cloumbus to the Americas by almost 400 years.
Lief Ericson
Lief Ericson was also known as Leif the Lucky. Lief was born in Iceland in 970 A.D. His father was Eric the Red. Lief left his family when he was eight years old, that was the custom of the Vikings. He went to live with a man named Thyrker. Thyrker taught Lief the reading and writing runes. He also taught Lief how to use weapons and the ways of trade. Lief learned to speak Celtic and Russian and the ways of plants. Lief would like to watch the ships come in to the harbour with his friends and listen to the tales of the sailors.
When Lief was 12 years old he was considered a man and returned to his father’s house. Lief went to the Thingveiller or lawmaking assembly with his father Eric. While there Eric killed a man with whom he had been fueding. The Thing council banished Eric from Iceland for three years. The ended up going to a land they had heard about. They landed there and called it Greenland.
While Lief was in Greenland his friend Bjarni Hergelfson returned and told of the lands they had seen when they had gotten lost. Lief did not attempt to find the lands for many years. During that time he went to Norway and spent time with King Olaf. After a time he went back to Greenland. Then he got bored so he decided to try and find the lands that his friend Bjarni had told him about.
Lief bought Bjarni’s boat and set of with Thyker. First they came to a place that looked like one huge slab of rock. He called it Helluland or Flat Rock Land. Next he came to a land that was an island with a mainland behind it. The land was rich so he decided to build at least one large house to the winter. There were plenty of salmon to eat and rich pastures for their cattle to graze on. Thyker found grapes on the land and was very excited.
When spring came they decided to leave and called the land Vinland. We now know Lief’s land to be L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada.
By: Glenn P., Gregory D. & Chris T.
I think this thread should be returned to the IP forum. 1421 obviously has political implications. My argument was that it was written to justify future expansion of the Chinese territories.
LOL, too many goobers can’t learn to think independently and move out of the “China=Satan” paradigm. The book was written by a retired British submarine captain and most of his claims have already been discredited by Chinese academics.
China is definitely interested in expanding its borders and influence in the world. Look at what has happened in the Himalayas, Hong Kong, Taiwan and now Singapore is getting friendlier towards them.
It would have been to obvious if the book was written by a Chinese historian. It had to be written by an unlikely exponent. Chinese historians might refute the claims now to make it seem more believeable, but this is obviously a long term thing. In a few years the claims might be taken as doctrine.
I am possibly wrong, as I often am, but what if I’m not? For some of us it would be good, but for others it would be misery and squalor.
No. EVERYBODY knows it was Nephi and his group of Irealites who made the trip… The people who continued to follow Nephi were taken up to heaven and the people who lost faith, the Lamanites, had their skin turned dark by God and became the Native Americans…and “Should the blood of a Nephite mix with that of a Lamanite…his seed shall too be cursed.”
For more information on the matter please see The Book of Mormon, a fantastic book transcribed in the 1830’s from tablets sent by God… written in perfect King James English… the official language of Jehovah…Okay!
[quote=“keiththehessite”]China is definitely interested in expanding its borders and influence in the world. Look at what has happened in the Himalayas, Hong Kong, Taiwan and now Singapore is getting friendlier towards them.
It would have been to obvious if the book was written by a Chinese historian. It had to be written by an unlikely exponent. Chinese historians might refute the claims now to make it seem more believeable, but this is obviously a long term thing. In a few years the claims might be taken as doctrine.
I am possibly wrong, as I often am, but what if I’m not? For some of us it would be good, but for others it would be misery and squalor.[/quote]
…and the Chinese also shot Kennedy… :help:
Actually the tablets were in some “unknown language” and he was given special Magical Reading Glasses by God to act as a Babelfish.
I have never read so much ignorant drivel in my life. You people don’t know what you’re on about.
It has been scientifically proven that Native Americans are the descendants of Lemurian refugees from the lost Atlantean Empire in the Northern Atlantic, whose great continent was submerged completely during interstellar warfare between the highly advanced Atlanteans and an alien race of mysterious origin who nonetheless seeded the human race during their star travels when they came upon the third planet from Sol.