Yeah, the cartoon I was shown in first grade of Columbus, the eccentric genius who first postulated that the Earth was round…is full of shit.
Everyone including Columbus knew the Earth was round. Columbus was the weirdo moron who used statute miles in an equation that called for nautical miles and then miscalculated the Earth’s size by about a third.
Not only did everyone know the Earth was round, they knew he was wrong about its size. They didn’t object to the voyage because they thought they’d fall off the face of the Earth, they objected because it was a ridiculously long way to go all around the globe from Spain to India.
Like I say, I think Ferdinand and Isabella funded the mission hoping he’d die of scurvy 9,000 miles off shore so he’d quit bothering them. It just so happened that approximately where he extremely wrongly calculated India to be sat the islands of the Caribbean, and a bunch of people who had no idea what cosmic anvils were about to descend from on high upon them.
Not only did everyone know the Earth was round, they knew he was wrong about its size. They didn’t object to the voyage because they thought they’d fall off the face of the Earth, they objected because it was a ridiculously long way to go all around the globe from Spain to India.
Like I say, I think Ferdinand and Isabella funded the mission hoping he’d die of scurvy 9,000 miles off shore so he’d quit bothering them. It just so happened that approximately where he extremely wrongly calculated India to be sat the islands of the Caribbean, and a bunch of people who had no idea what cosmic anvils were about to descend from on high upon them.