In the 1400s, the peoples of the world sailed the globe.
1409, China sent Zheng He.
1450: The Middle East sent Ahmad ibn Majid.
1492: Europe sent Christopher Columbus.
The explorations of these famous mariners occurred roughly at the same historical time, as if humanity developed together the desire to sail the planet.
Of the three, Zheng He's mighty sailing force of hundreds of 4-tiered ships and tens of thousands of sailers, was the largest fleet ever assembled.
Majid — called Lion of the Sea — was the poet and scholar, documenting the knowledge of a thousand years of Arab trade throughout the world.
And, finally, Columbus. Of all the mariners of the era, Columbus sailed with the least knowledge of the globe, the fewest men, and the smallest ships. He had a fleet of just three ships and a combined total of 86 men.
Unlike the Arabs, with a thousand years of seafaring under their belt, Columbus thought the world was small. He estimated his route from the Canary Islands to Japan to be about 3700 km when, in fact, it was 20,000 km. Good for him that he bumped into the Bahamas.
In fact, of the three famed mariners of the 1400s, perhaps only Majid knew the true size and sea routes of the globe. Zheng He sailed to Africa, India, the Mideast, and Indonesia. When Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the globe in 1519, Indonesian islanders still possessed Chinese porcelain.
