From IEEE Spectrum:
In 1494, upon Christopher Columbus’s return to Europe, delegates from Spain and Portugal met in the Spanish village of Tordesillas to divide the New World. In accord with an earlier papal decree, Portugal asserted dominion over what we now know as Brazil, while Spain claimed the rest of the Americas. However, they could not legislate for all time: the latecomers, Britain and France, would one day control much of the western hemisphere.
Recently, technical standards, especially for telecommunications networks, have come to resemble the Treaty of Tordesillas“they have left out a very important latecomer: China.
