Harris perused the curiosities in a shop in Taiwan. So what evidence does he have to support this notion? It's Menzie's belief that one merely has to refer to certain maps to see the light.Ī full 30 years before Gavin Menzies published his book, Baptist missionary Dr. Rather than civilization evolving separately in the Americas and Asia, under the 1421 theory, China was directly involved in governance and trade with the peoples of the Americas with whom they shared their ancestry.

From there, they are believed to have spread out over the course of millennia, diverging genetically and populating North and South America.īut Menzies' 1421 theory supposes much more direct influence from China. Sometime 10,000 years ago or more, people of Asian origination are believed to have crossed over the Bering land bridge from Siberia to what is now Alaska. Anthropologists, archaeologists, historians and linguists alike have debunked much of the evidence that Menzies used to support his notion, which has come to be called the 1421 theory.īut where did Menzies come up with the idea that it was Asians, not Europeans, who first arrived in America from other countries? It's been long held by scholars that it was people from Asia who first set foot in North America, but not in the way that Menzies describes.

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. 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.

Gavin menzies theory