Europeans were using roman numerals and an abacus for accounting until the 1200s. In fact, the number zero was initially banned out of concern for fraud. The Medici Bank was an early adopter of the IndoArab numeral system we use today and it helped them become one of the wealthiest families in Europe.

From the 600s to 1400s we can draw a fairly clear line from Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, Fibonacci, Pierro della Franchesca to Leonardo da Vinci.

In the old world it could take centuries for ideas to travel, even if they're foundational to modern mathematics, physics etc.

A similar story can be told of sugar which was first refined in South Asia, the engineering process travelled through and was further developed in the Arab world during the Islamic golden age and then went to Europe.

Italian merchant republics—primarily Venice—began managing sugar production in Mediterranean colonies like Cyprus, Crete, and Sicily. However, sugar is a land-hungry and wood-hungry crop. By the 1400s, the Mediterranean was running out of timber (needed to fuel the massive boiling vats) and space.

Christopher Columbus lived in Portugal and married the daughter of a sugar estate owner. When he sailed for the Americas, he brought sugarcane stalks from the Canary Islands on his very first voyage, knowing the Caribbean climate was a perfect match for the "white gold."

The Caribbean offered vast land, tropical rain, and timber. Because the process of cutting, hauling, and boiling cane is so physically punishing and dangerous, European powers scaled up the enslaved labor system to a level never before seen in the Mediterranean, turning the islands into "sugar factories" to meet the soaring demand in Europe.

The profits from sugar were unlike anything seen before. At its peak, a successful sugar plantation could see annual returns of 20% to 50%, far outstripping traditional agriculture or local trade. This led to the founding of institutions like the Bank of England, Barclays and Lloyds. Sugar also provided a cheap source or energy and made caffeine based beverages more palatable to maximize the productivity of human capital in operation of early machinery during the industrial revolution.

Yeah, they invented typesetting in China long before Europe, but they had to prepare characters for each run because of amount of possible characters, the letters were pottery, and it didn't seem like very useful thing so it was abandoned after the inventor's death.

At least that's what I heard, it might be a retcon for PR purposes

Daily reminder that no one is illegal on stolen land.

It's mind boggling how many teachers and professors in my life are still all aboard the "they were savages until we showed up" train.

Build me a musket out of obsidian.