When you want to know the truth about a historical event, you have to search obliquely.
To go ‘head on’ one will run into the ‘authorised versions’; for as is said in George Orwell’s Nineteen EightyFour;
“…Who controls the Present controls the Past.”
Hence, those ‘official’ historical reports were created by persons who wish to put ‘spins’ on events.
For example, if one researches Mansa Musa, one will find that he gained the throne because his predessor went on a journey with about two thousand boats to the West.
He came to the throne in 1312.
Now, why would the leader of a huge empire go with two thousand ships on the initial journey to the ‘New World’?
Clearly, this was not the first journey in that direction, and so many people went because they knew where they were going.
Columbus’ navigator was Pedro Nino, of African heritage.
How would he know where to go?
When to leave?
Questions like this open one to more than possibilities.