This episode is the first of at least five on Christopher Columbus, the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea." The episode discusses why Columbus should figure in to this history of the Americans in the first place, the state of Europe in 1491, why it was a European who connected the hemisphere rather than an Asian, Indian, African, or Muslim, and how it came that Columbus got the idea and built his "pitch deck" to raise the money for his venture. References for this episode Samuel Eliot Morison, The Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People Jill LePore, These Truths: A History of the United States Paul Johnson, A History of the American People Charles C. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus