If you're a history/sci-fi buff, you should pick up Kim Stanley Robinson's excellent The Years of Rice and Salt. A lot more on this in there.

When Zheng He sailed the ocean blue: "

History buff that I am I was shocked to learn from July's issue of National Geographic Magazine that I had never heard of Admiral Zheng He. His story is movie-worthy and his exploits provide a new lens through which one may view South Asia during what were the Dark Ages in Europe and much of Asia. The article about Zheng He was brought to my attention by my father (because the article that immediately follows it was about the Mars rovers). From the article by Frank Viviano [I transcribed most of the quotes below since the full article is not available online]:

Exactly 600 years ago this month the great Ming armada weighed anchor in Nanjing, on the first of seven epic voyages as far west as Africa-almost a century before Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas and Vasco da Gama's in India. Even the European expeditions would seem paltry by comparison: All the ships of Columbus and da Gama combined could have been stored on a single deck of a single vessel in the fleet that set sail under Zheng He.




Its commander was, without question, the most towering maritime figure in the 4,000-year annals of China, a visionary who imagined a new world and set out consciously to fashion it. He was also a profoundly unlikely candidate for admiral in anyone's navy, much less that of the Dragon Throne.




The greatest seafarer in China's history was raised in the mountainous heart of Asia, several weeks' travel from the closest port. More improbable yet, Zheng was not even Chinese-he was by origin a Central Asian Muslim. Born Ma He, the son of a rural official in the Mongol province of Yunnan, he had been taken captive as an invading Chinese army overthrew the Mongols in 1382. Ritually castrated, he was trained as an imperial eunuch and assigned to the court of Zhu Di, the bellicose Prince of Yan.




...Renamed Zheng after his exploits at the battle of Zhenglumba, near Beijing, he was chosen to lead one of the most powerful naval forces ever assembled.

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(Via Sepia Mutiny.)