The compass has, for hundreds and hundreds of years, been an essential component to cartography and exploration. Learn about the history of this incredible device and its use from contributing writer Xanthe Webb Aintablian in her brand-new article, The Compass.
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All well and good. Except when it came to sailing across oceans, and more specifically when it became important to be able to return.
It was the lanteen sail that allowed for the first time to sail innto the wind. Sailing ships could then return. Without the Lantee sail and the caravel Europeans would not have “discovered Amerida.” With or without the compassl