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this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
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Today I Learned
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Anyone know what Zipangri is? Could that be Baja California, or what?
Edit: Japan. Is apparently just off the coast of Mexico
This makes sense given the popular knowledge at the time. The reason Columbus set sail wasn't because he was a genius that knew the Earth was round when everyone else didn't. We knew the Earth was round since antiquity. I can't remember who^1^, but some ancient Greek had calculated the circumference of the Earth using the angle of a shadow, distance to a ~~equinox~~ solstice, and simple trigonometry. They guy was less than 5% off with his rudimentary calculation, which is impressive considering that he paid some dude to measure the distance between two towns by walking it. Anyways, the Western Europeans thought that Japan was farther east, somewhere around where the words "Terra florida" are on this map if I recall correctly from memory. When the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Marimba (party boat! jk, it was Santa Maria named after the "virgin") landed on the most beautiful land that human eyes had ever seen, they knew they hadn't landed on Zipangri/Cipangu/Japan. Instead, they thought they had landed on some island off of India, which is why they called the locals "Indios" (Indians). Anyways part 2, they thought that Japan was much further east than it was. I imagine that since they hadn't found it for this map yet, they though it must be right out of sight of the western coast of North Vespucci (America).
What I'm curious about is that 7448 inflating archipelago. Anyone have an idea on what that's about?
1: The dude was Eratosthenes. Thanks, @user134450@feddit.org!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_circumference#Eratosthenes