4 ms·
offtopic: Article mentions people laughing at Columbus. What I have read before is that they laughed because he simply calculated the Earth circumference wrong:
by mamon 6y ago
offtopic: Article mentions people laughing at Columbus. What I have read before is that they laughed because he simply calculated the Earth circumference wrong: if his goal was really finding a way to India, then he would need much bigger ships and much more supplies just to not run out of food on the way. He was just lucky that America is so close to Europe :)
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago> America is so close to Europe s/America/the Caribbean/ He never managed to set foot on either continent.
- pretendscholar 6y agoNot true http://columbuslandfall.com/ccnav/v4.shtml http://columbuslandfall.com/ccnav/v4.shtml
- vondur 6y agoYou are correct. The Portuguese wouldn’t fund his voyage because they knew his numbers were way too off for the circumference of the earth.
- otabdeveloper4 6y agoSome say that he knew full well that his numbers were wrong, but used them anyways to justify the voyage because explaining how and why he suspected there was a continent west of the Atlantic would be too complicated. (Supposedly sailors suspected about the Americas for a long time due to things flowing in with currents, but had no concrete proof.)