The Chinese didn't discover America

Erik Loomis debunks the myth:

I am curious why this idea that the Chinese reached America before Columbus has such legs. Of course, no one has done more to popularize this myth as Gavin Menzies through his awful book 1421: The Year China Discovered America. In the years since this book came out, I have heard way too many otherwise smart people (inevitably politically progressive) assert that the Chinese arrived in America before Columbus as fact, using Menzies book as evidence. Menzies essentially argues that the Chinese fleet which left China in 1421 discovered the entire world, using extraordinarily flimsy standards of evidence. I discussed how bad this book was years ago.

(via Matthew Yglesias)