RE: Columbus, the Gilligan of Explorers
Yes, in recent years the whole Columbus glory is getting more and more cracks. Not only is it now proven that he wasn't the first European who came to America (or whatever it was called before he got there), that was in fact the Vikings around 900 AD. Or rogue elements of the Vikings, to be precise.
But even worse, there are strong indications that the Vikings were not the first foreigners - illegal aliens as they are called today - who came to the coasts of the Americas. Some findings lead to the conclusion, that Polynesians reached the coast of todays Chile. Propably after the Viking era, but way before Columbus. There are also hints that the Chinese made it to the west coast of the US. Not to open laundries or build rail roads, but much earlier, perhaps even before the Vikings found that its to warm in Maine and went home.
But a recent discovery in Brasil (not official yet I think) would top all of that. People claim to have found early Egyptian hieroglyphs there. That would mean, that the Egyptians got there already in the era of the old riches, may be more than 4000 years ago.
And then there are of course the asian Siberians, who came to America first, may be around 15000 years ago. May be they should have build a wall straight away, but of course there was no Mexico to pay for it then. So that ended pretty badly for them later, as we all know.
So it seems, its almost easier to ask who didn't find the Americas. Well, may be the Romans - they would have written a memo to someone then. And the old Germanians propably - its just to long of a journey to go without decent bread, beer and sausages with Sauerkraut. But most others seemed to have been there already. A little bit like Las Vegas or NYC, or Mallorca today...
I guess the Roman navy couldn't quite keep up with the Roman army.
It just goes to show, it's in the nature of humanity to explore and discovery. That may be why as a species we're in so much of a funk these days--with worldwide instant communications, there's no place to discover whether there's someone else already there or not. Better start planning those colonies on Mars and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
Actually, the Romans were quiet good in sailing and their ships were state of the art at the time. They had a navy, but a even much bigger fleet of trading ships owned by private people. They travelled all over the mediterranean sea and even as far as Ireland and England to do business. Only their method of navigation limted them somewhat. Mostly they stayed in viewing distance of a the coast line, and they stopped on the coast - preferably a harbor - for the night. Crossing open sea areas was usually done on certain fixed routes that they knew from experience.
May be some tried to head out west into the atlantic, but after finding nothing after a few days they turned back.
Its a fundamental problem for all explorers: a discovery is only of value, if you are able to return home and tell about it. May be a whole number of people, Egyptians, Romans and who ever, made it over the Atlantic, more or less intentional. But they never made it back again. Perhaps thats the reason for the egyptian artefacts in Brasil, too.
Well, today the excitement is somewhat lost in the whole exploring thing. Even different planets like Mars, we know already what it looks like there, before anybody ever set foot on it. That makes it much less adventurous, although its still dangerous to go there. But thats more because of technical problems, rather than facing the unexpected.
Sure they were, but admitting that would ruin the joke!
I do wonder about how many explorers unintentionally made it to other places. And as you suggested, that's one of the things modern exploring doesn't have--people stumbling across new places, instead of studying their destinations first. Not to mention you can't just pack up and go to the bottom of the ocean or the surface of Mars.