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> He didn’t think Earth was flat, but by jumpstarting the Age of Exploration, he changed the course of human history. Of course he didn't think the earth was f

> He didn’t think Earth was flat, but by jumpstarting the Age of Exploration, he changed the course of human history. Of course he didn't think the earth was flat, it was everyone else who did. Until he proved it was round!

eesmith 3y ago
Literally from the article: > Despite a persistent legend, neither Columbus nor his Spanish patrons thought Earth was a finite plane instead of a round planet. And you can blame one of the United States’ greatest authors for creating a myth that still surrounds one of history’s best-known figures ... > It’s almost certain that in the 1490s, nobody thought the earth was flat. According to historian Jeffrey Burton Russell, “no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the Earth was flat.”
- hef19898 3y ago
  For those going to sea, or living on coast lines, itvwas clear the earth was round. For everyone else it didn't really matter either way.
  - eesmith 3y ago
    I don't think it's that simple. Pre-Socratic Greeks, like Xenophanes, lived on the coast and went to sea, but thought the world was flat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophanes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophanes Until 1600s or so, Chinese people thought the world was flat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#East_Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#East_Asia , even though many Chinese people lived on the coast and sailed the seas.
hotpotamus 3y ago
Everyone had a pretty good idea that the Earth was round, but the size was somewhat up for debate. Columbus did some bad math and came up with a really badly underestimated size and thought he had a clever way to the indies. If he hadn't run into a whole other continent unknown to him, he'd have perished long before he made it all the way around the Earth. The part I find most bizarre I think is that we still call Native Americans "Indians" to this day based on his now half-millennia old mistake.
- kergonath 3y ago
  There is some survivor bias at play. We don’t know how many other people attempted the crossing before him just to get lost at sea.

eesmith 3y ago

Literally from the article: > Despite a persistent legend, neither Columbus nor his Spanish patrons thought Earth was a finite plane instead of a round planet. And you can blame one of the United States’ greatest authors for creating a myth that still surrounds one of history’s best-known figures ... > It’s almost certain that in the 1490s, nobody thought the earth was flat. According to historian Jeffrey Burton Russell, “no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the Earth was flat.”

hef19898 3y ago
For those going to sea, or living on coast lines, itvwas clear the earth was round. For everyone else it didn't really matter either way.
- eesmith 3y ago
  I don't think it's that simple. Pre-Socratic Greeks, like Xenophanes, lived on the coast and went to sea, but thought the world was flat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophanes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophanes Until 1600s or so, Chinese people thought the world was flat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#East_Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#East_Asia , even though many Chinese people lived on the coast and sailed the seas.

hotpotamus 3y ago

Everyone had a pretty good idea that the Earth was round, but the size was somewhat up for debate. Columbus did some bad math and came up with a really badly underestimated size and thought he had a clever way to the indies. If he hadn't run into a whole other continent unknown to him, he'd have perished long before he made it all the way around the Earth. The part I find most bizarre I think is that we still call Native Americans "Indians" to this day based on his now half-millennia old mistake.

kergonath 3y ago
There is some survivor bias at play. We don’t know how many other people attempted the crossing before him just to get lost at sea.