# How ahead of his time was Columbus?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-ahead-of-his-time-was-columbus/638985>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [October 26, 2012, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-ahead-of-his-time-was-columbus/638985 "2012-10-26T23:47:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-ahead-of-his-time-was-columbus/638985/41 "2012-10-29T22:39:54Z")

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From wikipedia:

> [@](#):
>
> Columbus therefore estimated the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan to be about 3,000 Italian miles (3,700 km, or 2,300 statute miles), while the correct figure is 19,600 km (12,200 mi),[citation needed] or about 12,000 km along a great circle.

A tad off, I must say!

Note “citation needed”, so maybe this is wrong.

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**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-ahead-of-his-time-was-columbus/638985/42 "2012-10-31T19:51:16Z")

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Columbus had his nasty side, especially as a governor dealing with the natives, trying to get gold from them. But he was also a first rate sailor. On his fourth voyage he tried to warn another captain of an impending storm. This captain (Nicolas de Ovando)ignored him, and lost 24 out of 28 ships.  
There were other factors. The printing press and more unified nation-states spread word of his accomplishments to spread faster and more extensively than Leif Ericsson’s “Vinland”. The Portuguese voyages around the Cape of Good Hope let them to set up a papal-sponsored monopoly of trade in “the Indies” which gave incentive to others to try to go west. Columbus was also good at networking, finding people in superior positions to sponsor him. Some people have suggested that Spain finally driving the Moors out gave incentives for them to find new lands for non first-born sons to establish themselves.  
I suppose some other explorers would have made a similar trip a few years later if Columbus hadn’t But I can’t help but think that no one has stepped foot on the moon for almost 40 years. Or building SSTs. Just because it is feasible, it doesn’t mean it will automatically happen.

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