What if the New World was not discovered when it was?

[D.B. Cooper]

We all know the story, Queen Isabella of Spain took a chance on Columbus and sponsored his expedition across the Atlantic, and in return he enabled Spain to be a superpower for the following centuries. But what if Isabella and all the other European monarchs refused to finance him, and America went undiscovered for perhaps another couple hundred years?

A lot of things would be different, I think, but lets focus on the big ones.*

Would Europe, especially Spain, stagnate, allowing the Ottomans to expand into Europe? Would American nations like the Aztecs and Incas develop metal weapons and armour and boats and become a real challenge when contact finally happened?

[Miroslav Klose]

I guess that sooner or later someone else thought there should be another passage, as Portugal controls the 'eastern one'. Or someone just runs into it.

I think the New World would've been discovered in the 16th or perhaps the 17th century, though I doubt the Native Americans would have developed much further, disease will strike them when the Europeans go there anyway, and that the Ottomans conquered large parts of Europe is something I doubt as well.

[Their Law]

I'm unsure as there's a strong case for the colonialism of Spain resulting in it's stagnation, i could see the Ottomans dominating all of the Mediterranean rather than just the eastern portion for a good few centuries, but the decline of their navy was based on the reliance on a brown water navy and their faliure to adapt to the the new naval reality fast enough.

On land i doubt it would change the outcome in any significant way, as that wasn't really any of the colonial powers responsibility and thus it's likely that Austria, PLC and the Germanic states would have a held off the Ottomans. I could see the Ottomans being more financially well off considering a lack of a new world market would result in the status quo of the old spice routes. That said it is a dual edged sword and would also result in the delay of the decline of Venice as a power in the Mediterranean.

And as Glofindel said, the native Americans could of developed steel weaponry given a century or two but it still doesn't immunise them from the main killer of European arrivals which was disease.

[frank_garrett]

We all know the story, Queen Isabella of Spain took a chance on Columbus and sponsored his expedition across the Atlantic, and in return he enabled Spain to be a superpower for the following centuries. But what if Isabella and all the other European monarchs refused to finance him, and America went undiscovered for perhaps another couple hundred years?

A lot of things would be different, I think, but lets focus on the big ones.*

Would Europe, especially Spain, stagnate, allowing the Ottomans to expand into Europe? Would American nations like the Aztecs and Incas develop metal weapons and armour and boats and become a real challenge when contact finally happened?

the vikings discoverd the new world like 600 years before the spaniards. but they got thier ass beat by the natives.

i dont think the west could have tekken it without gunpowder. the natives were just too much.

[Ulf]

Portugal would have landed in South America some time around the turn of the century (1495-1505). The word of the new world would then have spread to Spain and the rest of Europe and not much would have changed beyond that. Portugal may have had a larger empire in SA due to having a small head start.

The Treaty of Tordesillas may have been signed in favor of the Portuguese rather than the Spanish. But honesty I don't see much changing. Portugal was the leader of worldly exploration at the time and sooner or later a Portuguese man would have wanted to find a different route to India to avoid Muslim traders.

[Hrobatos]

Spanish defeated Ottoman fleet, not regular army, so it didnt had much effect for Europe
it were Hansbugs of Austria who were most important for stopping Turks

[conon394]

the vikings discoverd the new world like 600 years before the spaniards. but they got thier ass beat by the natives.

The part they found was not exactly full of nifty stuff to take, they were mostly intrested in fish anyway. Gunpower not so important, the Europeans would still have had the edge as soon as old world plagues wiped out many Americans in more concentrated societies.

[Turtle Hammer]

Also, it's a little unfair to say the vikings got their heads kicked in so to speak, it was hardly a concerted effort to invade America on the part of all vikings, rather an enterpenerial attempt at starting a colony on the part of a group of adventurers/explorers.

[cpdwane]

the vikings discoverd the new world like 600 years before the spaniards. but they got thier ass beat by the natives.

The loss of the Viking colonies in Newfoundland and Labrodor was probably more down to them being cut off from Europe for a few winters, and being unable to cope without fresh influxes of settlers and livestock, rather then the natives actually destroying them.