2 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: What if Christopher colombus expedition failed miserably ?
What do mean the Basque peoples were already fishing off the coast of North America? That sounds like pseudo historical BS.
Comment by BobbyP27 at 07/02/2025 at 09:01 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The theory is that Basque fishermen had discovered the Grand Banks and were fishing there before Cabot's voyage. Given the capabilities of Basque fisherman of the time, it would have been within their capabilities to have gone there and done that, and cod was a valuable catch at the time.
Whether or not it had happened before Cabot visited Newfoundland, discovering the Grand Banks and then discovering Newfoundland is something that was likely to have happened anyway based on what people of the time were doing.
Comment by Kiyohara at 07/02/2025 at 13:49 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It's been found in Basque cultural records and I've read about it in Mark Kurlansky's *Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World.* A really good book a historian that writes and researches some of the less well researched things in history that have had a huge impact (Cod, Milk, Oysters, Paper, etc).
While his writing style is pretty pop-culture, looking over his bibliography he really does his homework .