Rowan Gavin Paton Menzies (born 14 August 1937) is a British author and retired submarine lieutenant-commander who has written books promoting claims that the Chinese sailed to America before Columbus. Historians have rejected Menzies' theories and assertions and have categorised his work as pseudohistory.

He is best known for his controversial book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, in which he asserts that the fleets of Chinese Admiral Zheng He visited the Americas prior to European explorer Christopher Columbus in 1492, and that the same fleet circumnavigated the globe a century before the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan. Menzies' second book, 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance extended his discovery hypothesis to the European continent. In his third book, The Lost Empire of Atlantis, Menzies claims that Atlantis did exist, in the form of the Minoan Civilization, and that it maintained a global seaborne empire extending to the shores of America and India, millennia before actual contact in the Age of Discovery.

Geographers claim China discovered America and Australia

1. Various exterior Royal Geographic Society
2. Interior with audience arriving for lecture
3. Geographer Gavin Menzies talking to arrivals
4. Interior hall with lecture about to start
5. Cutaway British newscaster Anna Ford
6. Menzies at podium with slide of old and new map of Florida and the Caribbean
7. UPSOUND: (English) Gavin Menzies, Geographer:
"As you can see Cape Canaveral is remarkably well drawn, you can see the inland rivers, again, this was long long ago before any Europeans got there."
8. Pan from old to new map of Florida and the Caribbean
9. Audience listening
10. Tilt up from modern picture to old map of Australia's Great Barrier Reef
11. Menzies walking to old map on wall
12. Close up old map
13. SOUNDBITE: (English) Gavin Menzies, Geographer:
"I came across a very strange chart that was made in 1424 and it seemed to me to show two islands in the Caribbean and I came to the conclusion after a lot of discussion with the curator of the museum that owned the chart that the islands were Puerto Rico and Guadeloupe. Therefore they were discovered in 1424, 70 years before Columbus. Somebody had been to the Caribbean."
14. Various audience after lecture
15. SOUNDBITE: (English) Anna Ford, Newscaster:
"I think we in the West so often assume that we have done things first and that we know better than other people and to find out that the Chinese had been to Australia 400 years before Captain Cook and that they went and mapped the whole of the world in 1421, 1428 is quite extraordinary. What I don't understand is why the Chinese aren't boasting about it more."
16. Menzies pointing at map on wall
17. SOUNDBITE: (English) Charles Aylmer, Head of Chinese Department, Cambridge University Library:
"I think I haven't quite seen enough evidence to convince me of the whole story so far. No doubt this will be revealed in the future, but we've certainly seen some very interesting pieces of the pattern which might eventually make up something which we can say is proof of what's being suggested.
18. Various Menzies talking to lecturegoers

STORYLINE:

A British geographer claims he has made a new discovery revealing that the Chinese, not the Europeans, first landed in America and Australia.

Unveiling literary and archaeological evidence at a lecture at the British Royal Geographical Society, the discovery is a culmination of 14 years of research.

Former Royal Navy Submarine Commander Gavin Menzies says there is evidence to prove the Chinese circumnavigated the globe 72 years before Spanish explorer, Christopher Columbus and a century before Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, landing on the West and East coast of America and Australia.

His evidence is multifold. Menzies says European explorers of that time record meeting Chinese in the New World; that the whole world was already mapped - probably by the Chinese who at the time had the resources necessary for the task; that the Chinese claim it themselves; and lastly that there are artefacts representing Chinese voyages of the day.

Sailing in 1000 foot long ships with junk-style sails, the Chinese fleet was under the command of top Chinese admiral Zheng He. He set sail in the early 1420s to bring back treasures from foreign lands.

Zheng was once a eunuch for Emperor Yongli of China's Ming Dynasty before he was made an admiral.

Critics say that Menzies has made too much of a link between artefacts of that era - some found in the Philippines - and Zheng's voyage.

They argue that there is scant evidence that Zheng's 107-strong fleet carried these treasures on board his circumnavigating ships.