Nobody Thought the Earth Was Flat in 1492

Almost nobody in 1492 thought the Earth was flat. The real argument was about how big it was, and on that question, the experts were right and Columbus was wrong. The famous story says a lone genius defied flat-Earth believers to sail west. In reality, educated Europeans had known the Earth was round for nearly two thousand years. Columbus's math was badly off, and he only survived because a continent happened to be sitting in his way. In this video, we follow the chain of cause and effect: why Europe wanted Asia, how Portugal's route around Africa locked Spain out, how Columbus stacked up three mistakes to shrink the ocean, why two expert panels said no, what the crossing felt like for an ordinary sailor, and how a nineteenth century author helped invent the myth we all learned in school. CHAPTERS 0:00 The myth 0:57 A round Earth is old news 3:37 Why Europe wanted Asia 5:51 Columbus's big idea 7:58 The experts say no 10:10 The sailor's view 12:53 The lucky landfall 14:57 How the myth was born 16:26 The real story FURTHER READING Jeffrey Burton Russell, Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea Valerie I. J. Flint, The Imaginative Landscape of Christopher Columbus Washington Irving, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828) #history #Columbus #HistoryExplained