Ridiculous Maps: That Time Everyone Thought California Was An Island

Summary

Ridiculous History – "Ridiculous Maps: That Time Everyone Thought California Was An Island" Podcast by iHeartPodcasts
Release Date: November 27, 2025
Hosts: Ben Bowlin (A), Noel Brown (C), Producer: Max Williams (B)

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Episode Overview

This episode kicks off a new Ridiculous History mini-series spotlighting history’s most bizarre maps, beginning with one of the most famous cartographic mistakes: the belief that California was an island. Through a mix of humor, detailed storytelling, and deep dives into cartography’s missteps, Ben and Noel explore how fiction, rumor, and slow information flow created—and sustained for centuries—the myth of the Island of California.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. A Comedy of Errors: How Map Blunders Happen

• [06:36] Ben opens with his passion for maps, prompting Noel to share his Skyrim map story, revealing their shared affection for cartography’s quirks.
• Both hosts discuss how, in centuries past, limited travel meant most people never left a 30-mile radius from where they were born, leading to wild speculative mapping.
• Ben: “Making maps is very difficult. It’s easier now than ever. But… most of the cartographers of old were doing the best they could with the technology and the information they had.” [07:56]

2. Origins of the California-as-Island Myth

• [09:24] Introduction to the myth: Old World Auctions lists the California island error as a famous cartographic misbelief.
• The word "California" was fiction before geography—a creation of Castilian author Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo (1510), who described an island paradise inhabited by Black Amazonian women guarded by griffins and laden with gold.
• Noel: “They took it as a matter of fact. It's kind of like if you were an astronaut and all you knew about the moon was science fiction…” [13:32]

3. From Fable to (Incorrect) Fact: Early Explorations

• [13:32] Spanish explorers, inspired by Montalvo’s fiction, set out seeking California, unconsciously seeking to fulfill a myth.
• Story of the mutinous ship “Conception,” its leader Fortun Jimenez, and crew landing near modern-day La Paz. Survivors testified about "a crazy island way out to the left," capturing the attention of Hernán Cortés (1535).
• Ben: “…if you look at this part of the coast of North America, there is a long peninsular thing. So if you don’t have enough information, it might look like an island to you.” [15:51]

4. Rapid Debunking Turned Slow Correction

• [17:11] Shortly after the initial voyages, Spanish explorers like Francisco de Ulloa and Hernando de Alarcón proved it was a peninsula—though this truth was slow to spread.
• Noel: “Part of the problem here was that the area in question was incredibly difficult to explore by either land or sea…” [28:07]

5. How Myths Persisted: Friar Antonio de la Ascensión’s Role

• [20:05] The “game of telephone” begins: slow communication allows rumors to persist, especially when people (like Friar Ascensión) assert bold claims without proof.
• Ascensión, a charismatic but unqualified assistant cosmographer, declared California “the largest island known...discovered up to the present day” [24:07]—despite lacking evidence.
• The hosts riff on why explorers exaggerated: self-aggrandizement, national pride, and the power of a good story.

6. Entrenchment in Mapmaking and the Infamous Maps

• [25:30] Starting in 1622, maps world-wide begin showing California as an island—a belief so entrenched it appears on Japanese maps into the late 1800s, well after California became a U.S. state.
• Noel: “It’s like misprinted currency… kind of things are the holy grail for collectors.” [37:40]
• Notable historical maps mentioned:
  • Henricus Hondius's Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Geographica Ac Hydrographica Tabula.
  • A slew of over 250 maps with the same error between 1622–1747.

7. Efforts to Set the Record Straight—and Resistances

• [28:39] The episode’s hero: Jesuit missionary and cartographer Eusebio Kino, who, after years of fieldwork (1698–1701), proved definitively that California is a peninsula.
• Kino’s quote: "I have discovered, with minute certainty and evidence...that California is not an island, but a peninsula or an isthmus…” [33:34]
• Despite Kino’s evidence, prominent European mapmakers (like Herman Moll) and the public resist correction—persistence fueled by copying previous maps instead of referencing new surveys.
• King Ferdinand VII, in 1747, finally issues a royal decree: “California is not an island.”

8. Why the Island Idea Lasted So Long

• Lack of firsthand knowledge, the slow correction of records, and the irresistible allure of the fantastical meant that for more than 200 years—even as new generations of explorers and monarchs tried to correct the record—California continued to "float" off the coast on maps.
• Ben: “The legend of a thing will outsell the truth of a thing, right?” [36:50]

9. Modern Resonance and Collector Culture

• Today, “Island of California” maps are prized collectibles—like rare misprinted currency.
• They symbolize cartography’s blend of speculation and romance, and the enduring human penchant for the fantastic over the factual.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On mapmakers’ earnestness:
  Ben: “Most of the cartographers of old were doing the best they could with the technology and the information they had.” [07:56]

• On the origin of California:
  “The idea or the name, the concept of California was invented before Europeans discovered the actual place called California…” – Ben [11:01]

• The literary myth:
  “In his description…he goes ham on this idea of an island paradise…populated only by…Amazonian black women who are protected by…griffins.” – Ben [11:41]

• Debunking myth, slow correction:
  “In the following years…a little bit more of a meticulous look at the the survey and decided that it was in fact a peninsula. Which seems to me to be a more obvious mistake than island because it's also not a peninsula.” – Noel [19:36]

• On how rumors become maps:
  “He…did not speak from authority…what he lacked in education and experience, he made up for in raw imagination.” – Noel [21:21]

• Kino’s evidence:
  “I have discovered, with minute certainty and evidence…that California is not an island, but a peninsula or an isthmus…” – Noel, quoting Kino [33:34]

• The power of myth:
  “The legend of a thing will outsell the truth of a thing, right?” – Ben [36:50]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [06:36] Maps and personal stories—why weird maps fascinate us
• [09:24] Introduction to the Island of California myth
• [11:01–13:32] Montalvo’s original fiction and its impact
• [14:30–17:26] Early Spanish explorations, initial confusion between peninsula and island
• [19:36–22:12] Experiments and eyewitnesses debunk island myth, but rumors spread
• [24:07] Friar Ascensión’s bold (but baseless) claims
• [25:30] Entrenchment of error in European and world maps (1622+)
• [28:07] Geographic and logistical difficulties in correcting the record
• [28:39–33:34] Eusebio Kino’s work to prove the truth
• [35:53] Royal decree of 1747 and slow adoption of facts
• [36:50] Debate on myth vs. reality and collector’s culture

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Final Thoughts

Ben and Noel ultimately argue that historical cartographic blunders teach us about the limitations of knowledge, the endurance of myth, and human creativity—both intentional and accidental. California’s former “island-hood” is a cautionary tale about the leap from fiction to accepted fact, and a celebration of the wonderful weirdness lurking in the margins of history.

For more quirky episodes, listeners are encouraged to rate the podcast, contribute comments, and tune in for future explorations of ridiculous historical cartography.

Transcript

[A]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartradio. Welcome back to the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you as always so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man, the myth, the legend, the map maker, super producer, Mr. Max Williams.

[B]

Gobble, gobble.

[C]

He's the map, he's the map. He's the map, he's the map. Don't sue us, Nick Jr. Ah, Nick.

[A]

Everything's going fine. Now. That's Mr. Noel Brown right there. And that's they call me Ben Bollen in this part of the world. Guys, before we we get into our history of ridiculous maps of yesteryear, I think we owe it to our fellow listeners to talk about a slight kerfuffle we had. A lot of us were tuning in to ridiculous history recently and saw a description of Doc Holliday as a deadly dentist. Only to hear a pretty in depth exploration of the ridiculous history of dog food.

[C]

The classic bait and switch, the RHBNs.

[A]

So we love this, by the way, because guys, we got some hilarious and supportive comments from our fellow ridiculous historians who were weirdly and no offense anybody, weirdly super on board with that bait and switch you described. Noel.

[C]

I was gonna say bemused.

[A]

Bemused is a great word.

[C]

I'm glad you think so. It is a great word and I think it's appropriate here. I certainly was and it would be not that far out of character for the show to just start with one idea and then pivot to something completely different.

[B]

And if I can just jump in here as the man who runs the RSS feed, it is very easy to switch an M and a B. That is what happened. No joke. In my internal system, the M, the M and the B in November got flipped, which jumped the wrong episode to the top of my queue of uploading things.

[C]

So it was a spreadsheet kerfuffle, but.

[B]

I like the idea of we did that intentionally. So let's go with it.

[C]

Yeah, let's just continue the mystery. Hey guys, I have a bit of a pitch.

[A]

Sure.

[C]

I'm surprised we haven't seen it. Maybe I've missed it, but what do you think about a Jigsaw esque serial killer with a message called the Cartographer who takes people's skin and turns them into historical maps?

[A]

I didn't know you read my blog, Noel.

[C]

Oh man. Knew it was too good to be around.

[A]

No, it's original. It's great. As you can tell, we're always pitching, we're always trying to think ahead.

[C]

You know, we're pitching, closing, drinking coffee.

[A]

Always be cartographing, which is a word we just churchified. Today's episode is the first in an ongoing series about maps.

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[A]

Now, Noel, you know I collect and obsess over maps. Have you. Are you a map guy?

[C]

I have a map of Skyrim.

[A]

Thanks, Matt.

[C]

That our buddy Matt Frederick gifted to both of us. It is currently in a holding space while I figure out a new place to put it because I had to do a little moving around of some art pieces, but it was hanging in my guest room for some time. No, but have we not done an episode about funky maps? Surely it's come up. I love that this. Yeah. Okay, so maybe we could retroactively grandfather those into this ongoing series, but for our purposes today, we can call this Part one.

[A]

Yeah. Cast your memory back, fellow human beings, back in the days where most people lived and died about 30 miles from where they were born. Like in that area, you don't know much about the world around you. Someone comes up to you and says, hey, the world is round. And you're like, burn the witch. Or they say, hey, the world is flat. And you're like, that's a platform I can stand on. Or they say, the world shaped like a quesadilla, and you're like, what? The timing's wrong here. Quesadillas aren't a thing yet.

[C]

But also delicious in advance. Yeah.

[A]

And the issue is that making maps is very difficult. It's easier now than ever. But we have to acknowledge that all of the cartographers of old. Let me amend that. Most of the cartographers of old were doing the best they could with the technology and the information they had.

[C]

They were doing their level best, you know.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Cause it's almost like, I mean, now we've got all this satellite imagery and things that can take a much larger overview, scanning bodies of water and land masses, et cetera. But back in those days, if you hadn't actually traversed the thing that you were mapping, you really were guessing. And even if you had traversed it to fit it all into the jigsaw puzzle that is all of the surrounding land masses and have things like borders and all of these other ephemeral concepts, I mean, there's going to be some misses.

[A]

Yeah. You know what I mean? That's why we call it the drawing board. That's why we call science and learning a conversation. So with that in mind, we being a supportive crew of absolute bozos, we want to talk about times cartographers bozoed up their maps. Specifically the island of California.

[C]

I'm sorry, the what?

[A]

The island of California. This comes to us from Old World auctions. This is probably one of the most familiar famous cartographic mistakes. Oh, and we should say cartography is the study of and creation of maps.

[C]

Oh, sorry. Yeah, we buried the lead there. Our apologies. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm still hung up on this idea of California being an island. Whose idea was that?

[A]

Right, take us to the manager. We say, calling Gavin Newsom. This is. If you look at the map, it is a vaguely carrot or rocket shaped mass and it's detached from the western coast of North America. So if you look at this map from back in the day, it appears that California is not part of the contiguous United States. Instead, it looks like it's a little floaty boy out there on the left.

[C]

Can we also just name off the insane map that this comes from? Oh, yeah, let's see. Henricus Hondius is the name of the cartographer, and the work or the piece is entitled Nova Toscius Terrum orbis geographica.

[A]

Hydrophi tabula tight 10 10.

[C]

I'm assuming the ack is meant to be pronounced, but I'm not 100% sure. It may well be like a, you know, a hyphen or something like that.

[A]

Like our pal Joe McIlhaney. Mick Alhaney is. Yeah, okay, well, apologies, Joe, if we're mispronouncing the name, as our pal is saying here. Joe points out that before California was established as an actual place to the Europeans, it was a fantasy invented by the guy who named the map. Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo. He's a Castilian author.

[C]

And can I just say, the Latin esque sounding name that I mentioned earlier is just one of numerous versions of this thing that exists. It's not like the OG but I just had to rattle that one, right?

[A]

Yeah, that's the thing. So the idea or the name, the concept of California was invented before Europeans discovered the actual place called California. Today, back in 1510, our buddy Montovo, he published sort of like a spinoff or an addition to chronicles that had been written earlier. And in his description, he. He just waxes on like. He waxes on, waxes off. He goes ham on this idea of an island paradise to the right hand of the Andes that was populated only by, and this is a quote from him, Amazonian black women who are protected by the mythological creatures, the griffins. And they have a bunch of gold griffins being the.

[C]

What is it, like a lion?

[A]

It's like a lion. Eagle.

[C]

That's right. Taloned and flighted.

[A]

Yeah. Here we have to mention a previous episode we created way back in 2018.

[C]

That's right. The episode that I think I was referencing, or at least working towards referencing California, was named for a fictional island ruled by a black Amazon queen. I think there are a couple others that fit this series as well, but that one was definitely on my mind. So Montevallo's story, or Montalvo's story, excuse me, began to circulate and really took on a life of its own. And so the Spanish explorers in New Spain were very familiar with what had become kind of a type of lore and this sort of notion of this promised land, you know, the island of California.

[A]

Yeah, they took it as a matter of fact. It's kind of like if you were an astronaut and all you knew about the moon was science fiction, you would say, oh, of course. This is the stuff from the story earlier. And so our buddy, or many people, particularly Hernan Cortez, they carry over these ideas, this informative inspirational fiction. And eventually one of Cortez's two ships, the conception, is taken over by Mutiny and it is steered to a site that's kind of near present day La Paz. This means Dakaru is the first European ship to land in what we call Baja California.

[C]

Yeah, this is Cortez, the killer of Neil Young fame, of course. But before he had an opportunity to write up an account of this discovery or really survey the area for map making purposes, Jimenez was killed by the locals.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. The guy we're referencing here, Fortun Jimenez, is the leader of the mutiny and he rocks up with this awesome weather worn boat at this point and he is murdered. Not everybody aboard is murdered. There are surviving crew members and they make it back to their version of what they call civilization. And they say, oh wow, there's this crazy island way out to the left of the map. And this catches the attention of Renan Cortez. He starts exploring the Baja California region in May of 1535. And at this point, Noel, we have to note, I almost said we have to map. We have to note that if you look at this part of the coast of North America, there is a long peninsular thing.

[C]

That's right.

[A]

So if you don't have enough information, it might look like an island to you.

[C]

That's right. And I really did occur to me when I think of, like, a peninsula, I guess I always think about Florida, for example, the whole, the way it juts out.

[A]

Or Italy, the sea.

[C]

Or Italy, of course. And I could see how with a limited view, a limited scope of what was going on along the coast here, that one could, you know, make that mistake. And again, we're not here to, like, criticize the people of the past because to your point, Ben, you know, sometimes we are. But they did their best with the information that they had.

[A]

Yeah. So our guy Cortez and crew, they travel about 200 miles up both the Gulf and the Pacific coast, and they're originating from Cabo San Lucas. At this point, your buddy Hernan says, oh, geez. Okay, cheese and crackers. This land is an island. Nothing I have seen so far from the boat with the information I have could make the story I read earlier sound incorrect. So this is an island. We're going to call it California because I'm well read and I remember that from the story I read earlier. Right.

[C]

Yeah. Well, the funny thing is, even in this day and age, with that aforementioned lack of information, the island myth was, you know, it was debunked pretty quickly, if not nearly instantly.

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[C]

In the following years. A couple of handful of years after Cortez journey up the coast, his lieutenant, Francisco de Aloa, along with Hernando de Alarcon and Mel Shore Diaz took a little bit more of a meticulous look at the the survey and decided that it was in fact a peninsula. Like I was mentioning earlier, which seems to me to be a more obvious mistake than island because it's also not a peninsula.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Well, California has a peninsular feature. That's the issue. And as we were saying, three different people, Diaz, Alecon, they all confirm that this is not an island. But the game of telephone begins and so the fact gets lost. There are all these rumors going around in a very a very slow information age. So you hear something from someone who knows someone and now you think it's a fact. What they call the Gulf of California, the rumors go, is actually a strait S T R A I T connected to the Strait of Anian. But there is one guy credited with popularizing this belief. The belief, the legend, the absolutely juicy story, but factually inaccurate lore that California is an island. He is a friar. His name, Antonio de la Asuncion. Oh, and he, by the way, did not speak from authority.

[C]

That's right. Asension was not educated. He had little to no experience. But what he lacked in education and experience he made up for in raw imagination. He was a member of an order like I guess a monastic order, the Barefoot Carmelite, where he served as assistant cosmographer in 1602 during an expedition led by Sebastian Vizcaino. His mission was to establish a site for Spanish trade from the Philippines or along the route from the Philippines in order to kind of take stock and re up on supplies and also to Take shelter in the unfortunate event of an attack from the British privateers that we know so well.

[A]

Yeah. Ed, let's pause here and think about how ambitious this expansion scheme is. These ships are not very quick. They're going across the Pacific from the Philippines to this island of California and then they're also navigating their way around the world. That's pretty impressive. Our barefoot Carmelite here, Senzion, he's there and as you said, Noel, 1602. So we have to remember that he's referencing stuff that was discovered back in the 1540s by the span. Can I say Spaniards on this show? I don't think.

[B]

I think Spaniards is the correct phrase. Yeah.

[A]

All right, let's keep all of this in.

[C]

As long as you don't say dirty Spaniards or something like that.

[B]

Yeah, those sex driven Spaniards or something like that.

[C]

Swarthy Spaniards.

[A]

We're keeping it all in.

[C]

No, we are not.

[A]

So we're keeping it all ant. And look, the timing is important. So like Nolt was saying, 1602, this expedition by Vizcaino. In this you can find a journal that is written at the time and it's published several years after the end of the mission. In this you will see the argument that the Gulf of California goes on to communicate with the ocean of the north by the Strait of Anial. So Ascension has no firsthand evidence about California being an island. But he is not going to let the facts get in the way of a very good story. And we have a quote from it.

[C]

Yeah, let's call this a quick summation of that story. Asension wrote, I hold it to be very certain and proven that that the whole kingdom of California, it's a kingdom now discovered on this voyage is the largest island known or which has been discovered up to the present day. Ben, is this all in the service of a bit of self aggrandizement perhaps of the. Of the explorer himself and also, you know, the crown.

[A]

You know, I think about that a lot, Noel, because it's kind of like, to put it in modern context, it's kind of like how a friend comes back from a trip abroad and becomes momentarily insufferable. And so now this guy's like, oh, I went out, you know what I mean? What have you done? Other barefoot Carmelites? Well, I saw the kingdom of California and it's the biggest island ever. So that's my trip 100%.

[C]

Doesn't it also just sound like a little bit like a big fishtail, you know, like it's certain and proven the whole of the kingdom of California discovered on this voyage is the largest island known to man that has or ever will be discovered. Yeah, he doesn't say that. He does say up to the present day, but it just, I don't know, it's got a certain rhetorical panache to it that maybe smacks of like he. Does he really believe this or is he just talking a big game?

[A]

It's a bit self aggrandizing, diplomatically put, and it is wild conjecture. However, it captures the public imagination and starting in 1622, so decades and decades after everybody said California is not an island, it starts to appear as an island on maps. You can find well over 250 examples of maps from the time period and shortly after it that appear to depict California as an island, starting as we said, back in 1622.

[C]

I think that's the one I referenced with the really long Latin Novo.

[A]

What is it?

[C]

Nova Novotochius Terrarum Terrarum orbis. Sounds like a Harry potter spell. Geographica A.C. or A.C. hydrographica tabula.

[A]

Ah, it's a classic.

[C]

I've been watching the Harry Potter movies recently for the first time ever. Not as bad as I thought, kind of entertaining. I've got like Harry Potter spells on the brain.

[A]

How far are you into it?

[C]

I am on the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

[A]

I know you're going to love it, man.

[C]

It's good. I'm not joking, man. I poo pooed them for years. And I actually think the movies get better. Actually they get much as the story gets more adult. But obviously J.K. rowling, not a great person.

[A]

No, not our favorite. And this is why we decided to make an episode about our favorite maps that are incorrect. Starting with this, the game of telephone begins. All right, 1622, there's a guy who publishes a map. 1622. We know Pacific maritime trade is already a thing. So if you go as far as the early 19th century in Japan, you will see maps that argue California is an island. Like all the way up to 1865, well after California has become a state in the United States of America. Like everybody who lives there knows it's not an island. But everybody has heard from someone who has heard from someone who has it on a good authority that this place is an island. So the maps don't agree with the facts on the ground.

[C]

So part of the problem here was that the area in question was incredibly difficult to explore by either land or sea, which as we mentioned at the top, is a key part of Making maps correctly. Explorers in the region would often face really, really harsh conditions. Nasty weather, you know, running short on supplies, starvation, and of course, disease. And this was a tall order because, I mean, there was a lot of hardship being faced for not a lot of return.

[A]

Yeah, that's the issue. They were selling a pretty wild pitch, right? And it turns out gold is not just falling in your hand rolling off a hill. It is still the real world and there are real problems. And there's one guy we want to introduce into the stage now. He's our protagonist for this episode. Max, if we could get a drum roll. That's right, folks. The Jesuit missionary, explorer and cartographer Lucio Kino. Pausing for applause. All right, everybody, please sit down. Our guy Kino is the dude, or the European dude who definitively proves that California has a peninsula. It is not an island. And get this, folks, for the first like, well, more than a hundred years after he proves this, everybody is like, ah, shut up, you Jesuit. Sit down. It might be an island.

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[A]

This episode of Ridiculous History is brought to you in part by American Public University.

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[C]

So this fellow arrived in Baja in 1681 believing that California as a whole was a peninsula. This is what many folks in this guy's generation were taught there in Ingolstadt. But soon after he got to Mexico, he saw with his own eyes something that indicated to him that it was in fact an island.

[A]

Oh, he went back and forth, right?

[C]

And then what did he see? Was he just listening to. It's, it's. Yeah, he had a.

[A]

He had a conversation with a very charismatic guy, like the slap Chop guy or something, maybe.

[C]

So, yes, yes, the showtime.

[A]

Yeah. And so the thing is, our buddy Kenobi sticks around the area. And the more he sees of the region, the more he starts to say, I don't know, doesn't look like an island to me. And because he is a Jesuit, he is deeply disciplined. He is of a religious school of thought that does not eschew science. So you have to learn the facts is what he's thinking as a Jesuit. So from 1698 all the way up to 1701, he keeps building this case that California is indeed a peninsula. And we have a quote from him in this regard.

[C]

Yes, we do. And I'm going to give you that quote. I have discovered, he says, with minute certainty and evidence. God, another big game talker with mariners, compass and astrolabe in my hands that California is not an island, but a peninsula or an isthmus, which is a favorite geographical word of mine. And that in 32 degrees of latitude there is a passage by land to California. And that only to about that point comes the head of the sea of California.

[A]

All right, so after this guy says this, the European world still doesn't want to admit it. If you go to the big time publishers and map makers of the day, folks like Herman Maul Mo l l, you'll see that they just dismiss it. This guy, who is, by the way, incorrect in this quote. In 1711, he says, I've had my office mariners who have sailed around it, meaning the island of California, which cannot Be accurate, because California is not an island. And the. But the colleagues, like his fellow Jesuits of Kino, they shrugged off his findings too. Eventually, some other Jesuits follow up on his work. One of these guys, Juan de Ugarte, travels up the Gulf of California as far as he can make it in 1721. And then another Jesuit named Fernando Koenzag, he surveys the Gulf completely in 1746. This is all before the United States is a thing. And now it becomes like a culture war, as weird as it is to say. King Ferdinand VII issues a royal decree to shut Everybody up in 1747.

[C]

Quiet, you.

[A]

Quiet you. And he said, look, officially, as the king, with God given authority, California is not an island. So everybody you know, sit down, knock it off with all your yammering.

[C]

Get in line. My kingly perspective.

[A]

So this guy, the King Ferdinand, he is on the right side of history in only this respect. And. But the problem is people are still making maps. And most of cartography at this point in time, so far as we know, is one person seeing a map and then copying that and making their own tweaks.

[C]

And speaking of the game of telephone, I mean, telephone is almost like too advanced of analogy here because it was like word of mouth and things had to spread through written correspondence, and it would take a long time for the incorrect information to get filtered out. There was no real time response and, like, retractions. I mean, you'd have, like, maybe you'd have isolated areas that, like, wouldn't even get the memo for many years.

[A]

Right, exactly. You know, and that's why I think you nailed it. The legend of a thing will often outsell the truth of the thing, right? That's the way to put it. So this kind of concept of California as an island is long gone. You can travel there now. Max Knoll and yours truly have often gone to California, and we love it. We have a studio out in la, and we have a ton of friends all throughout that state. However, now, the idea of California as an island, since it was so widely published, but now it is a fascinating thing for map collectors and fellow cartography nerds.

[C]

Yeah, it's like misprinted currency. Like, a lot of times those kind of things are the holy grail for collectors. Right? So that would make sense that this would definitely be highly collectible. And W. Michael Maths, who is a cartography historian, agrees. He refers to this depiction of California as possibly the most attractive phenomenon in the history of cartography, due entirely to its bizarreness, its connection with the romantic nature of Exploration. And I think what it represents just in terms of like, how outlandish speculation could thrive in this point in history.

[A]

The Piri Rees map has entered the chats, but we have your back, Mike. W. Mike, if we may be familiar, this calls back to this idea of outlandish speculation. Take it as truth as long as enough people are repeating it. And maybe it's due to the fantastical writings of early European interlopers. California still has this mythical air about it to this day. If you look at like if we exercise empathy and we imagine we're back in the 1500s or the 1600s and we see every single map of this part of the world showing California as an island, then it's not a bridge too far to think that, hey, maybe that's true and this is the beginning of a long journey because we've talked about maps on stuff they don't want you to know. We've talked about maps when we were lost in the national radio Quiet zone, we desperately talked about maps on that road trip.

[C]

Yeah, we desperately, we were desperately seeking maps to load on our phones, but we couldn't. Luckily, I think our buddy Scott had like an old school school garmin that did give us a little bit of relief. In that case, it just goes to show, you know, we rely on these little devices in our hands quite a lot.

[A]

And we also know that there are more maps in the future. Big, big thanks to you fellow ridiculous historians for tuning in. Big thanks to our super producer and research associate for this episode, Mr. Max Williams. Who else knows? Who else? Who else?

[C]

Well, Alex Williams, who composed our theme, Christopher Osiotis and Eve Jeff Goats here in spirit, Jonathan Strickland, the Quizzter, AJ Muhammad Jacobs, the puzzler.

[A]

Now I'm going to let you slide on that nice thank you to the Quizzter.

[C]

You know he knows what he did. He does know what he did. It's true. He just like you say, Ben, he sort of insists upon himself, but we insist upon him as well.

[A]

And we can't wait for you to insist upon your local podcast platform, platform.

[C]

Of we just can't quit the Quizzter. Man, you just can't quit the Quizzter.

[A]

And if you find yourself on ye old Internets, please feel free to give us a little rating, give us a little five star review if you're feeling generous. I don't know how much people charge for stars these days, but we sure would appreciate it. Now we've got our super producer Max popping in on the chat to make some remarks I imagine gobble gobble.

[B]

This is Thanksgiving episode so I'm just gonna keep saying gobble gobble and.

[A]

And with you as. And with you as well, folks. Thanks for tuning in.

[C]

Yes. We'll see you next time, folks. And a happy. Yeah, happy holiday season to all of you. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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You're almost at the finish line.

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But first.

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There the last one.

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Visit a store t mobile.com or call 1-800-T-Mobile 1-800-T-Mobile. See details@t mobile.com this episode of Ridiculous History is brought to you in part by American Public University.

[C]

You're juggling a lot. Full time job, side hustle, maybe a family.

[A]

And now you're thinking about grad school.

[C]

That's not crazy, that's ambitious.

[A]

At American Public University, they respect the hustle and they're built for it.

[C]

Their flexible online master's programs are made for real life because big dreams deserve a real path.

[A]

Learn more about APU's 40 plus career relevant master's degrees and certificates at APU APUS EDU APU built for the Hustle.

[D]

The holidays are back at Starbucks. So share the season with a peppermint mocha, Starbucks signature espresso, velvety mocha and cool peppermint notes topped with whipped cream and dark chocolate curls together is the best place to be at Starbucks. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.