An Ottoman sea captain mapped the New World in 1513

In 1513 the Ottoman naval captain Piri Reis drew a world map showing the Atlantic coast of South America in striking detail. He listed his sources on the map itself — some twenty charts including, he wrote, a map made by Christopher Columbus, obtained from a Spanish sailor captured at sea. The surviving fragment, on gazelle-skin parchment, is now the only known trace of that lost Columbus map.

One of many fact-checked wonders across eight traditions at The Spring of Wisdom.