Marco Polo's will helps prove he actually made it to China
After 700 years of rumors, it turns out Marco Polo probably wasn't lost after all.
A new study of the explorer's will corroborates the idea that he did in fact make it to China, per Reuters.
Polo's will hadn't been studied in 150 years, and its messy cursive led to confusion. Some historians thought Polo only made it to the Black Sea and heard about China there, but items and requests in his will suggest otherwise.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Polo listed that his servant, a Tartar person from Mongolia, be set free when he died. And an inventory of what Polo left behind after his death included expensive musk, an item from the Far East. He left it all to the church, his wife, and his daughters — something unusual for the time, as most men gave their possessions to male relatives. Read more about the discovery at Reuters.
-
Son arrested over killing of Rob and Michele ReinerSpeed Read Nick, the 32-year-old son of Hollywood director Rob Reiner, has been booked for the murder of his parents
-
Rob Reiner, wife dead in ‘apparent homicide’speed read The Reiners, found in their Los Angeles home, ‘had injuries consistent with being stabbed’
-
Hungary’s Krasznahorkai wins Nobel for literatureSpeed Read László Krasznahorkai is the author of acclaimed novels like ‘The Melancholy of Resistance’ and ‘Satantango’
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's viewSpeed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
