Genoa Opens America
America wasn't discovered in 1492, it was unveiled.
Author Mark Kurlansky in his brilliantly researched book Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, reveals that during the Middle Ages, a great quantity of Atlantic cod was supplied to the European market by the Basques, making them immensely rich in the process. But this fish has never been found in Basque or even Spanish waters, so where was all this cod coming from? The Basques, who had never said where the fish came from, kept it a secret.
“There were cod off of Iceland and in the North Sea, but the Scandinavians, who had been fishing cod in those waters for thousands of years, had not seen the Basques. The British, who had been fishing for cod well offshore since Roman times, did not run across Basque fishermen even in the fourteenth century, when British fishermen began venturing up to Icelandic waters.”1
But with the discovery of the North American coast in 1497 by the ‘other’ Genovese explorer, Giovanni Caboto, their secret was finally revealed.
Kurlansky writes: “Cabot…