Staff and wire reports
The Chinese are credited with many discoveries, including gunpowder, paper and the compass, but a claim that they discovered America is once again being met with skepticism.
An 18th-century reproduction of a map dated 1418 that suggests a Chinese fleet sailed to America decades before Christopher Columbus in 1492 went on display in Beijing this week.
The 1763 copy was bought for $500 in 2001 by Chinese lawyer and art collector Liu Gang.
Liu says he did not realize its significance until reading Gavin Menzies' 2003 best seller 1421: The Year China Discovered America. It claims that Chinese admiral Zheng He led 300 ships to America to expand Ming China's influence.
Skeptics point to inconsistencies in the book and the map, saying, for example, that the map uses language that does not fit the style of Ming China.
