(10-01-2014 01:54 PM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  

(10-01-2014 12:24 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  

(10-01-2014 11:51 AM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  

(10-01-2014 11:46 AM)bitcruncher Wrote:  Christopher Columbus' crew mutinies and attempts to return to Spain, but never makes it due to short supplies. Spanish officials think they sailed off the edge of the world, and never attempt another trip.

Everyone in the western hemisphere today speaks either English or Portuguese.

Oh, really? I didn't know that Portuguese was the national language of Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Columbia, Argentina, Chile, etc. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

I guess it's Portuguese that all the Hispanics in this country are speaking too.

Obrigado, amico.

BTW, it was only AFTER the Spanish started bringing back Galleons full of Aztec gold that the Portuguese, Dutch, and English started making their voyages to the new world.

So no one from Europe ever tries to go west again? Doesn't seem likely.

Oh, they'd come again. But not for another 50 years or more. Who would back another voyage if they felt the sailors were doomed from the start, and anyone backing such a voyage would be throwing money away? Remember, everyone thought the Earth was flat, and if Columbus didn't return they would assume he sailed off the edge.

Royals, for the most part, weren't the sharpest ones around due to centuries of inbreeding. And they were the ones who controlled the purse strings. No private ventures would have been forthcoming. Nobody else had the funding required. So it would have had to wait until another royal family could be persuaded to fund another attempt to find a sea route to China that didn't involve sailing around the southern tip of Africa, where treacherous sea currents were that made that trip very risky.

For all we know, the next attempt might have waited for another century. But I figure it would have happened sometime within the next 50 years. And by then, the Iroquois nation would have been civilized long enough to have greatly increased in size and population. They were beginning to move away from a hunter gatherer society, and had begun farming by the time the whites first came to America.

History from that point would have taken a decidedly different path.