I’d be curious to know what would have happened if Christopher Columbus’s fleet had been lost at sea during his first voyage across the Atlantic. Most scholars were already highly skeptical of his plans, as they were based on a miscalculation, and him not returning would have further discouraged any explorers from setting off in that direction. How much longer would it have taken before Europeans found out about the Americas, and how would history have developed in the meanwhile?
I’d be curious to know what would have happened if Christopher Columbus’s fleet had been lost at sea during his first voyage across the Atlantic. Most scholars were already highly skeptical of his plans, as they were based on a miscalculation, and him not returning would have further discouraged any explorers from setting off in that direction. How much longer would it have taken before Europeans found out about the Americas, and how would history have developed in the meanwhile?
Have you read Orson Scott Card’s “Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus”? It suggest an answer to this question.
Not a very realistic one, though.