This selection of ongoing historical debates lets readers analyze some of the most captivating controversies of the era from 1000 C.E. to 1900 C.E. Did the Chinese reach North America 70 years before Columbus? Did Kind Richard III murder his adolescent nephews? Is it true that Lincoln provoked the South into the attack on Fort Sumter? These are just a few of the questions from the second millennium C.E. that have raised more than a shadow of a doubt and caused heated debate among historians. This volume in ABC-Clio's "Popular Controversies in World History" series brings together the pro and con arguments on 15 of the most vexing historical questions from the Dark Ages to the dawn of the 20th century. "Popular Controversies in World History: 1000 C.E. to 1900 C.E." ranges around the world and across 1,000 years of human history to explore mysteries that captivate the public and inspire the community of historians. Topics include Norse explorations of the New World, Galileo and the Inquisition, and the 'lost dauphin' of the French Revolution. By providing authoritative reasoning to support both sides of these controversies, the work sets the stage for readers to investigate, speculate, and argue for themselves. This series features 30 expert contributors, each an established historian supporting either the 'pro' or 'con' point of view of a historic controversy with credible evidence and well-reasoned arguments and 25 sidebars with excerpts from relevant primary source materials. This title offers professional historians' views and arguments from both sides of a specific unresolved issue and the pro and con debate structure offers readers a unique format for evaluating historical arguments and evidence.