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John Oliver Sinks His Teeth Into the Wild World of Subway Sandwiches

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Barefoot Grin5/23/2022 4:06:47 pm PDT

re: #142 ckkatz

International trade of the period is quite fascinating.

I am sure you know this, but for others:

At the time Ottoman Turkey sat directly astride the trading routes to India and Asia. Other nations were looking for ways around that monopoly. The Portuguese were the first to figure out how to go around Africa. With the Spanish right behind them. And of course early explorers who accidentally tacked a little too far out to sea from the African coast ended up in Brazil.

It must have been a wild time in the 15th and 16th centuries. “Japanese” pirates were raiding China, Chinese merchants were setting up operations in the region and migrating by the tens of thousands, Portugese followed by Spanish, Dutch and then English traders started showing up…. The inventions of China returned to the motherland along with new products from the emerging European empires.

Oh, and Taiwan might have been an afterthought if it weren’t for the Spanish and Dutch (and then Ming malcontents).