20 upvotes, 4 direct replies (showing 4)
View submission: What if Christopher colombus expedition failed miserably ?
Sadly, this is a boring part of history. At the time the Basque peoples were already fishing off the coast of North America and may even have had some landings to dry fish before returning home for the season.
The Portuguese were sailing ever closer to South America and in a few years would notice fresh water in the Atlantic (which indicates a truly fucking massive river near by) and land based water fowl flying to the West. It's literally a matter of time before one of them decides to follow the birds or water source to see what's going on and if it has trade value.
And even then a lot of scientists have figured out the Earth's size and are postulating that there *might* be something over by America, even if they weren't sure what it is (be it a small few islands, a bunch of islands, or something bigger). Granted their theories on *why* something had to be there were kind of silly (like it counterbalanced the Earth's spin), but it was also a matter of time before someone decided to give it a shot.
And to further belabor the point, sailing technology was just going wild. New designs were coming out, each more and more sea worthy than the last. Everyone was trying to get around Africa and into India/Spice Islands just as much as they were trying to crank out a fleet to compete with Spain and Portugal and Venice. The technology was getting to the point where a boat that was very capable of making the attempt was more or less fully understood by all the nations, so again eventually someone would build a boat designed for long distance exploration and turn it West rather than South.
So...
Sadly, the "Discovery" of the New World was more or less inevitable, and would have happened much sooner than later. I'd personally argue it would have happened in the next twenty years after Columbus fails and possibly even ten years afterwards. If he never even tries it might actually happen *sooner* since experts wouldn't be pointing out how his calculation on earth's size were drastically incorrect.
Comment by MarkNutt25 at 06/02/2025 at 20:23 UTC
10 upvotes, 1 direct replies
The Portuguese independently discovered Brazil just 8 years after Columbus' first expedition to the Americas.
Comment by Ghostmaster145 at 06/02/2025 at 21:11 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It’s actually believed by some that Columbus knew about America prior to his voyage
Comment by OkTruth5388 at 07/02/2025 at 00:48 UTC
2 upvotes, 2 direct replies
What do mean the Basque peoples were already fishing off the coast of North America? That sounds like pseudo historical BS.
Comment by TwinFrogs at 07/02/2025 at 05:05 UTC
-4 upvotes, 1 direct replies
The Norska Danish Vikings were in Newfoundland 500 years before the asshole Spanish showed up in the Caribbean and started murdering natives.