Who Really Discovered America?

Today on Far Future Horizons we commemorate the five hundred and twenty-third anniversary of the discovery of America by exploring the question - Who Really Discovered America?

This documentary explores the possibility that a number of explorers discovered the New World long before Christopher Columbus staked his claim in 1492. 

Ancient Discoveries - Roman Ships

Today on Far Future Horizons we take another foray into the field of marine archaeology with the History Channel’s acclaimed documentary series “Ancient Discoveries”.

1421: The Year When China Nearly Discovered America and the World

History tells us that the America continent was discovered by Christopher Columbus on October 12, 1492. But, a nascent naval power had the ability to discover and colonize this new world some seventy years before.

The year 1421 could have been a pivotal year in world history and would make a magnificent point of divergence in many an alternate history novel. 1421 could have been the year when Ming dynasty China could have set into motion a series of events that would have led the Chinese to discovery the Americas some seventy years before Christopher Columbus, circumnavigate the globe and transform Imperial China from merely a regional power into a major naval superpower of global extent on which the Sun would never have set. Instead China chose to abrogate its appointment with destiny and retreated into a long period of isolationism. The conquest of the world and control of the oceans were left to the countries of a Europe just awaking from a long period of intellectual slumber. Eventually the new emerging maritime powers of Europe found their way to the shores of the Dragon’s lair and were in due course to carve the carcass of this impotent giant between themselves.

Ancient Discoveries - Chinese Super Ships

Today on Far Future Horizons we present another exciting episode of the History Channel’s acclaimed documentary series “Ancient Discoveries” where we will meet the master shipbuilders of Imperial China.


These master shipbuilders of the Far East created the most deadly warships of ancient times in their quest for supremacy of the seas.

This installment of Ancient Discoveries uncovers the extraordinary ingenuity of the ancient engineers whose innovations would take shipbuilding to new heights and create some of the largest and most fearsome navies of the ancient world. Could this very same ancient Chinese naval technology have transformed China into a nascent naval power with the ability to discover and colonize the new world some seventy years before Christopher Columbus set sail into the unknown and discovered America?