1492 famously brought Columbus’s discovery of a route to America. This was, as today’s guest Felipe Fernández-Armesto points out, ‘a world-changing event if ever there was one.’ But what else was happening in that fateful year? Far beyond the courts of Europe, what was life like in China? In Africa?

In this week’s brilliantly insightful episode we set out on a journey of our own to glimpse 1492 in three telling scenes. Our guest is one of the finest imaginable. Felipe Fernández-Armesto is an eminent and hugely decorated author who had written extensively about maritime and world history. In this episode he guides us from the tranquil hills of China to the rivers of Africa and the smouldering shores of the Caribbean in the year 1492.

But before all of that, he begins by telling us about another figure from this opening phase of the Age of Exploration, the character at the centre of his latest ‘myth-busting’ biography: Ferdinand Magellan.

As ever, there is much more about this episode on our website: tttpodcast.com

Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s new book is called Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan

Show notes

Scene One: 15th day of 7th month (August 7th), Xiangcheng, China. The poet Shen Zhou paints a mystical experience.

Scene Two: November or December, death scene of Sonni Ali, perhaps in a crossing of the River Niger in the vicinity of Gao.

Scene Three: 12th October, somewhere in the West Indies, probably Watling Island. Columbus meets Indigenous Americans for the first time.

Memento: One of Shen Zhou’s paintings.

Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Felipe Fernández-Armesto

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

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