Rowan Gavin Paton Menzies (born 14 August 1937)^[1] is a retired British submarine commander and author. He is best known for his controversial book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, in which he presents his hypothesis that ships from the fleet of Chinese admiral Zheng He visited the Americas prior to European explorerChristopher Columbus in 1492, and that the same fleet circumnavigated the globe a century before Ferdinand Magellan. Menzies' second book, 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance extended his discovery hypothesis to the European continent.

In the community of professional historians these theories are dismissed as fictitious and have received no support as of this writing.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]}