First of all, Columbus rediscovered America a good century before Galileo. Secondly, the idea that people believed in a flat earth before Columbus is entirely

First of all, Columbus rediscovered America a good century before Galileo. Secondly, the idea that people believed in a flat earth before Columbus is entirely a 19th Century conceit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus#Geographical_considerations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus#Geographi... In fact, the fact that the earth is (essentially) spherical was well-known to basically everybody since ancient times. For example, any sailor could have told you that when approaching land, the tops of mountains appear first over the horizon.