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Hi,
I’m John Green;

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this is
Crash Course: World History

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and today we’re going to do
some compare and contrast,

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because that’s what passes for
hip in world history circles.

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Right, so you’ve probably heard of

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Christopher Columbus who in 1492
sailed the ocean blue

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and discovered America, a place that
had been previously discovered

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only by millions of people--

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Mr Green, Mr Green!

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Columbus was just a lucky idiot.

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Yeah, no.

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Here’s a little rule of thumb,
Me from the Past:

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If you are not an expert in something,

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don’t pretend to be an expert.

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This is going to serve you well
both in your academic career

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and in your Kissing Career.

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MOVING ON.

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[music intro]

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[music intro]

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[music intro]

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[music intro]

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[music intro]

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[music intro]

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So unlike Me from the Past,

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I’d argue that Columbus has a
deserved reputation in history—

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[Save his Harry Potter
directional stint]

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but was he really the greatest sailor
of the 15th Century?

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Well, let’s meet the other contestants.

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[playing for a lifetime supply of Garlique]

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In the red corner, we have Zheng He,
who, when it comes to ocean-going voyages

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was the first major figure of the 15th century.

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And in the blue corner
is Vasco da Gama,

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from scrappy little Portugal,
who managed to introduce Europeans

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to the Indian Ocean trade network.

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Columbus, you have to sit
in the polka-dotted corner.

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[until you learn special effects
are a privilege, not a crutch]

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As you’ll no doubt remember from
our discussion of Indian Ocean trade,

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it was dominated by
Muslim merchants,

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involved ports in Africa and
the Middle East and

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India and Indonesia,
and China and

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it made a lot of people super rich.

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This last point explains why our three
contestants were so eager to set sail.

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Well, that and the ceaseless desire of
human beings to discover things

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and contract scurvy.

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Let’s begin with Zheng He,

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who is probably the greatest admiral
you’ve never have heard of.

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Couple of important things about Zheng He:

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First, he was a Muslim.

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That may seem strange until you consider that
by the late 14th century China had long experience

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with Muslims,

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especially when they were ruled by,
wait for it....

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The Mongols.

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[Hark! The commotive, cacophonic
caterwauling of clattering conquerors!]

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Secondly, Zheng He was a eunuch.

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(He was one of a kind?]

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Fortunately, 15th century China had
excellent general anesthesia,

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so I’m sure it didn’t hurt at all
when they castrated him—

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what’s that,
Stan?

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They didn’t have any anesthesia?

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Oh, boy.

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Oh. STAN,

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I’M SEEING IT!

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I can see, AH AH AHHHH.

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Stan!

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SHOW ME SOMETHING
CUTE RIGGHT NOW!

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Oh, hi there kitty!

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How’d you get in that little teacup?

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Thank you,
Stan.

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Right, so

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Zheng He rose from humble beginnings
to lose both of his testicles,

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and become the greatest
admiral in Chinese history.

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Let’s go to the thought Bubble.

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Between 1405 and 1433,

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Zheng He led seven voyages
throughout the Indian Ocean,

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the expeditions of the so-called
treasure ships, and they were huge.

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Columbus’ first voyage
consisted of three ships.

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Zheng He led an armada
of over 300 ships.

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With a crew of over 27,000—

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more than half of London’s
population at the time.

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And some of these ships were,
well, enormous.

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The flagships,
known as treasure ships,

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were over 400 feet long and
had 7 or more masts.

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See that little tiny ship there
in front of the Treasure Ship?

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That’s a to-scale rendering of
Christopher Columbus’s flagship,

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the Santa Maria.

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Zheng He wasn’t an explorer:

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The Indian Ocean trade routes
were already known to him

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and other Chinese sailors.

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He visited Africa,
India, and the Middle East,

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and in a way,
his journeys were trade missions,

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but not in the sense of filling his
ships up with stuff to

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be sold later for higher prices.

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China was the leading manufacturer
of quality goods in the world,

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and there wasn’t anything they
actually needed to import.

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What they needed was prestige and respect
so that people would continue to see China

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as the center of the economic universe,

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so there was a tribute system

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through which foreign rulers or their ambassadors
would come to China and engage in a debasing

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ritual

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called the kowtow

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wherein they acknowledged the
superiority of the Chinese emperor

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and offered him or her
but usually him

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gifts in return for the right
to trade with China.

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The opportunity to humble yourself
before the Chinese emperor was

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so valuable that many a prince was
happy to jump on a treasure ship

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and sail back to China
with Zheng He.

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Also, these tribute missions brought
lots of crazy things to China,

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including exotic animals:

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From Africa, Zheng He brought
back a zoo’s worth of

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rhinos, zebras, and even giraffes.

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Basically, he was like the
medieval Chinese Noah.

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Thanks, Thought Bubble.

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So the Chinese were world
leaders in naval technology,

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and they wanted to dominate
trade here in the Indian Ocean.

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So why, then, did these voyages end?

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One reason was that Zheng,

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He couldn’t live forever,
and sure enough, he didn’t.

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Also his patron,
the Yongle Emperor, died.

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And the emperor’s successors weren’t very
interested in maritime trade.

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They were more concerned
with protecting China from

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its traditional enemies,
nomads from the steppe.

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To do this,

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they built a Rather Famous Wall.

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The Great Wall was mostly built under the
Ming with resources that they had because

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they stopped building gigantic ships.

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Just imagine what might have happened if the
Ming emperors had embraced a different strategy.

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One that was based on outreach
instead of isolationism.

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And now,
to the blue corner…

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Representing
Portuguese exploration,

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we have Vasco da Gama.

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Couple things about Portugal:

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First, it has a fair bit of coast line.

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Secondly it was also
relatively resource poor,

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which meant it relied
upon trade to grow.

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Also, the Iberian peninsula was the only place
in Europe where Muslims could be found in

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large numbers in the 15th century,

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which meant the Christian Crusading spirit
was quite strong there, presumably because

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Muslims had brought so much stability
and prosperity to the region.

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And chief among these
would-be crusaders was

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Prince Henry the Navigator,
so called because

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he was not a navigator.

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[What is in a name,
Metta World Peace?]

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He was, however, a patron, not only of sailors
themselves, but of a special school at Sagres

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in which nautical knowledge was collected
and new maps were made,

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and all kinds of
awesome stuff happened.

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And all that knowledge gave Portuguese sailors
a huge competitive advantage when it came

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to exploration.

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Henry commissioned sailors
to search for two things.

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First,

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a path to the Indian Ocean
so they could get in on

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the lucrative spice trade.

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And second,

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to find the kingdom of Prester John,

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a mythical Christian King who was supposed
to live in Africa somewhere, so that Henry

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could have Prester John’s help in a crusade.

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Da Gama was the first
of Henry’s protégés

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to make it around Africa,
and into the Indian Ocean.

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In 1498,
he landed at Calicut,

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a major trading center on
India’s west coast.

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And when he got there, merchants
asked him what he was looking for.

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He answered with three words:

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Gold and Christians.

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Which basically sums up
Portugal’s reasons for exploration.

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So, once the Portuguese breached
the Indian Ocean,

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they didn’t create, like,
huge colonies,

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because there were already
powerful empires in the region.

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Instead,

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they apparently sat in the middle
of the Indian Ocean doing nothing.

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Actually, they were able to capture
& control a number of coastal cities,

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creating what historians call a

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“trading post empire.”

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They could do this thanks
to their well-armed ships,

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which captured cities by

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firing cannons into city walls

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like IRL Angry Birds.

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But since the Portuguese didn’t
have enough people or boats

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to run the Indian Ocean trade,

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they had to rely on extortion.

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[C.R.E.A.M. Get the money-
Dollar, dollar bill y'all.]

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So, Portuguese merchant ships
would capture other ships

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and force them to purchase
a permit to trade

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called a cartaz.

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And without a cartaz,
a merchant couldn’t trade

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in any of the towns that
Portugal controlled.

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To merchants,

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who’d plied the Indian Ocean
for years in relative freedom,

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the Portuguese were
just glorified pirates,

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extracting value from
trade without

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adding to its efficiency or volume.

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So, the cartaz strategy sort of
worked for a while, but

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the Portuguese never really took
control of Indian Ocean trade.

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They were successful enough
that their neighbors Spain,

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became interested in their
own route to the Indies,

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and that brings us to Columbus.

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But first, let’s dispel some myths:

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One:

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Columbus and his crew
knew the earth was round.

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[Some folks still
aren't convinced]

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He was just wrong
about the earth’s size.

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Columbus used
Ptolemy’s geography

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and the Imago Mundi, based
on Muslim scholarship—

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and ended up overestimating
the size of Asia and

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underestimating the size
of the oceans.

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Two:

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Columbus never thought
he’d made it to China.

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He called the people he
encountered “Indians” because

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he thought that he’d made it to

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the East Indies,
what we know as Indonesia.

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Three:
Columbus was not a lucky idiot.

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He navigated completely unknown
waters primarily relying on

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a technique known as
dead reckoning,

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in which you figure out your position
based on three pieces of information:

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The direction you’re going,

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your speed,

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and the time,

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which you figure out via hourglass.

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With only that technology
to guide you,

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its not actually that easy
to hit a continent.

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Come here people who are
saying he didn’t hit a continent,

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that he only hit some islands.

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Come here.

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Dahhh!

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Oh,

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it’s time for the Open Letter?

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An open letter to
the Line of Demarcation…

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But first,

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let’s see what’s in the
secret compartment today.

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Oh,
its a globe. T

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hanks Stan!

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Just what I always needed.

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Dear Line of Demarcation,

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You have so much to teach us

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about the way that the world
used to work,

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and the way that it works now.

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In 1494, Pope Alexander VI

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settled a dispute between
Portugal and Spain by

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dividing the world into two parts:

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The Spanish part, and
the Portuguese part.

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This whole thing, at least

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according to
Pope Alexander VI,

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could be split between
Spain and Portugal.

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At least when it came to
so-called unclaimed land.

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I mean, unclaimed by whom?

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You know all the
American Indians were like,

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“wait, this land is available?
In, in that case, we’ll just,

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we’ll just keep it.

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If its all the same to you.”

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Anyway, Line of Demarcation,

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I have great news for you.

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What Alexander VI did

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totally worked.

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We haven’t had a
problem since.

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Best wishes, John Green.

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So, Columbus’s first journey

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(he made four,

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the last three of which
were pretty calamitous)

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was tiny,

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00:08:19,999 --> 00:08:22,529
and he initially landed on a s
mall Caribbean island he called

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San Salvador in search,
like the Portuguese,

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of Gold and Christians.

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He was able to convince

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Ferdinand and Isabella
of Spain

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to fund his expedition by

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promising riches and
conversions of the natives,

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hopefully to sign them up
for yet another crusade.

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And there’s a long-standing
myth that Columbus tricked

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Ferdinand and Isabella
into paying for his trip,

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but in fact they’d commissioned
two different sets of experts

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to analyze his plans,
both of which agreed,

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he was [totes cray cray].

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One called the plan,

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“Impossible to any educated person.”

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But even so,

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Ferdinand and Isabella
footed the bill,

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partly because they were
full of Crusading zeal

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after expelling the
Muslims from Spain,

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00:08:52,470 --> 00:08:55,040
and partly because they were
desperate to get their hands

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on some of that pepper richness.

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00:08:56,399 --> 00:08:56,970
[Also some Kleenex, to help with
the subsequent sneezy richness?]

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Columbus of course,
failed at finding riches—

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he returned with
neither spices nor gold.

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He did create some Christians, as
we’ll discuss in a future episode,

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but in terms of
goal accomplishment,

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Columbus was much less
successful than either

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00:09:07,110 --> 00:09:08,839
Zheng He or Vasco de Gama.

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00:09:08,839 --> 00:09:09,089
[and most certainly, David Yates]

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00:09:09,089 --> 00:09:10,649
But within two generations
of Columbus,

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Spain would become
fantastically wealthy,

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00:09:12,529 --> 00:09:14,829
and for a time they were
the leading power in Europe.

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00:09:14,829 --> 00:09:17,420
Columbus’s voyages also
had a huge, largely negative,

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impact on the people the Spanish
encountered in the Americas.

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00:09:19,740 --> 00:09:21,620
And excitingly
from my perspective,

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00:09:21,620 --> 00:09:23,279
once Columbus returned
from San Salvador,

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we can speak for the first time
of a truly world history.

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00:09:27,899 --> 00:09:29,070
Except for you Australia.

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00:09:29,070 --> 00:09:31,110
So who was the greatest
mariner of the 15th century?

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00:09:31,110 --> 00:09:31,940
Well, as usual,

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it depends on your
definition of greatness.

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00:09:33,589 --> 00:09:33,990
[Eccleston, Tennant, Smith?
Frak it... Adipose?]

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00:09:33,990 --> 00:09:34,410
If you value

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00:09:34,410 --> 00:09:36,740
administrative competence
over ill-advised adventure,

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00:09:36,740 --> 00:09:38,790
than Zheng He is
certainly the winner.

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00:09:38,790 --> 00:09:40,490
But the reason we remember
Columbus over him

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00:09:40,490 --> 00:09:41,420
or Vasco de Gama

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00:09:41,420 --> 00:09:44,649
is that Columbus’s voyages had
a lasting impact on the world,

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00:09:44,649 --> 00:09:46,990
even if it wasn’t
necessarily a positive one.

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00:09:46,990 --> 00:09:49,050
And that makes me wonder what
kind of person you’d want to be:

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00:09:49,050 --> 00:09:51,750
A capable administrator and
brilliant sailor like Zheng He?

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00:09:51,750 --> 00:09:53,769
A daring captain like de Gama?

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00:09:53,769 --> 00:09:57,300
Or the bearer of a complicated
but famous legacy like Columbus?

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00:09:57,300 --> 00:09:58,600
Let me know in comments.

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Thanks for watching,
and we’ll see you next week.

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00:10:00,279 --> 00:10:01,610
Crash Course is
produced and directed by

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00:10:01,610 --> 00:10:02,399
Stan Muller,

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00:10:02,399 --> 00:10:03,550
our script supervisor is

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00:10:03,550 --> 00:10:04,029
Danica Johnson.

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00:10:04,029 --> 00:10:05,110
The show is written by my

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00:10:05,110 --> 00:10:06,000
high school history teacher

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00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:07,290
Raoul Meyer and myself,

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00:10:07,290 --> 00:10:08,670
and our graphics team is

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00:10:08,670 --> 00:10:08,899
Thought Bubble.

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00:10:08,899 --> 00:10:09,500
[Seriously, no Canadians made
it past Stanley Cup Round 1?]

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00:10:09,500 --> 00:10:10,190
Last week’s
Phrase of the Week was,

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00:10:10,190 --> 00:10:11,170
“You smell pretty.”

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00:10:11,170 --> 00:10:11,380
[missed an opportunity
for banjo picking there...]

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00:10:11,380 --> 00:10:12,449
Thanks for that suggestion,
by the way.

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00:10:12,449 --> 00:10:14,019
If you want to suggest
future phrases of the week,

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00:10:14,019 --> 00:10:15,050
you can do so in comments

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00:10:15,050 --> 00:10:17,100
where you can also guess at
this weeks phrase of the week

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00:10:17,100 --> 00:10:18,740
or ask questions about today’s video

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00:10:18,740 --> 00:10:20,250
that will be answered
by our team of historians.

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00:10:20,250 --> 00:10:21,329
Thanks for watching
Crash Course,

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00:10:21,329 --> 00:10:22,740
and as we say in my home town,

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00:10:22,740 --> 99:59:59,999
Don’t forget you're Stuck In My
Heart Now, Where My Blood Belongs.