The book has generated controversy within the halls of scholarship. In his bestselling book, '1421: The Year China Discovered America,' British amateur historian Gavin Menzies turns the story of the Europeans' discovery of America on its ear with a startling idea: Chinese sailors beat Christopher Columbus to the Americas by more than 70 years. And with them, the knowledge that the Chinese had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan, reached America 70 years before Columbus, and Australia 350 years before Cook.La Santa María (La Gallega) was the largest of the three ships used by Christopher Columbus in his first voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492. And so these great ships rotted at their moorings and the records of their extraordinary journey were destroyed. But by the time the fleet returned home, Zhu Di had lost control and China was beginning its long, self-imposed isolation from the world it had so recently embraced. Their journey would last for over two years and take them around the globe. Their mission was 'to proceed all the way to the end of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas' and unite the world in Confucian harmony. The ships, some nearly five hundred feet long, were under the command of Emperor Zhu Di's loyal eunuch admirals. On 8 March 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China. The result of over 15 years research, this is Gavin Menzies' account of the voyage of the emperor's fleet, the remarkable discoveries he made and the incontrovertible evidence to support them: ancient maps, precise navigational knowledge, astronomy and the surviving accounts of Chinese explorers and the l And with them, the knowledge that the Chinese had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan, reached America 70 years before Columbus, and Australia 350 years before Cook.

1421 by Gavin Menzies