At the dawn of Europe’s Age of Exploration, daring explorers boarded ships and set off insearch of trade routes and territories. What they found opened the eyes of Europe to the rest ofthe world; however, false assumptions and a lack of thoroughness resulted in incorrectinformation being generally accepted as fact, sometimes for centuries. Here are some examples.Although early European explorers suspected that the world was a sphere, they were unawarethat the American continents existed. So, when Columbus set sail heading west from Europe,upon reaching land, he believed they had arrived in Asia. In reality, the islands whichColumbus and his crew reached in 1492 were in the Caribbean, not located off the coast ofChina. Furthermore, he was disappointed because he was not able to find the Indian Ocean.By the 1500s, Europeans were no longer in the dark about the Americas, and were looking fora water passage through North America. This “Northwest Passage,” if found, would shortenthe trip from Europe to Asia by eliminating the voyage around South America. In 1524, Francesent the explorer Verrazzano to hunt for such a passage. He arrived at the coast of NorthAmerica, passed through a natural land barrier, and entered Pamlico Sound, a large body ofwater that is located off the coast of North Carolina. Without bothering to check further, he determined that he had reached the Pacific. Due to this error, maps of the area were incorrectfor the next century. This false information was a reason that the British first colonizedVirginia, from where they expected to find a route to the Pacific soon after they arrived.In 1876, British sailors claimed to have seen Sandy Island several hundred miles off the westcoast of Australia. Mapmakers assumed it to be the same Sandy Island initially sighted by thefamous British explorer Captain James Cook a century earlier, so it was added to official maps.Until 2012, the Manhattan-sized island could be seen on U.S. military maps and even onGoogle Earth. That same year, an Australian ship sailed to the spot where Sandy Island shouldhave been—and found nothing but open water more than 4,000 feet deep. It was evident thatthere had never been an island at this location. The embarrassing ghost image was erased fromall maps, but how did it get there in the first place? One theory is that the island may still existbut at a different location. If true, Sandy Island may appear again on future maps.
【題組】21. What would be a good title for the article?
(A) Age of Exploration
(B) Mistakes of European Explorers
(C) Discovery of the American Continents
(D) False Information of Sandy Island