Did columbus discover the United States before or after they found out the earth is round?

Answer 1

The earth was known to be round in 1492, the only questions were how big is the globe, and will the currents, both ocean and air, allow for a ship sailing west from Europe to ever return home without having to sail through the Indian Ocean which was widely believed to be land-locked at the time. It was thought that Africa (Lybia), Asia and Europe were the only continents on earth and the other half of the planet was completely water and totally land-less.

Neither Columbus or Amerigo ever discovered the US of A. (Amerigo was the first to realize that Columbus found a new continent, not Asian wilderness) Later Spanish, French, Dutch, British and Russian explorers discovered what is now the United States.

Answer 2

hen Columbus set sail, the general theory of the day was that the earth was flat, so they thought he would never been seen again. However, neither Columbus no anyone else ever discovered the United States!! The USofA did not exist then,, and NO he did not even discover America proper! He landed along the Carribean islands!! Cuba and Puerto Rico!! The US of A was formed and created some 300 years after Columbus died of venereal disease.

Answer 3

The idea that people ever thought that the Earth was flat is a bit of a misconception. Since the beginning of time, there have been people believing nutty things. Consider the people who believe today that man never landed on the moon, or that Israel blew up the Twin Towers. To this day, there are people who believe the world is flat. http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm
While many believed around the time of Columbus that the world is flat, Experts had know at least since the ancient Greeks that the world is round(Ptolemy did a pretty fair job of computing the Earth's circumference)

Answer 4

Men knew that the Earth was spherical in ancient times. Pythagorous made the claim that the Earth is spherical. Eratosthenes estimated the circumference of the Earth two centuries before Christ. His estimate was within 2% of the actual distance.

As for Columbus -- he not only never discovered the United States -- he never set foot anywhere in what is now The United States. In fact -- the US did not even exist until 216 years after Columbus first came to the Americas.

Answer 5

Columbus certainly understood that the earth was spherical. Otherwise, his plan would have been ridiculous - to reach the East by sailing west.

In fact, it's quite likely that some astronomers and other natural philosophers were aware of this centuries earlier. The Ancient Hellenistic (Greek-Egyptian) philosopher Ptolemy calculated the circumference of the earth (inaccurately) over 2000 years ago - roughly 1500 years before Columbus. He at least got the shape right, if not the size.

I bet the court of Isabella and Fernando in Spain also believed the earth was round. Actually, they bet it was - by funding Columbus' voyage.

Answer 6

800 years earlier there was a Christian book called Sphere. so the belief that the earth was round before Americans were discovered. this is from Chuck Colson.

As Rodney Stark writes in his new book, For the Glory of God, "every educated person" of Columbus's time, especially Christian clergy, "knew the earth was round." More than 800 years before Columbus's voyage, Bede, the church historian, taught this, as did Hildegard of Bingen and Thomas Aquinas. The title of the most popular medieval text on astronomy was Sphere, not exactly what you would call a book that said the earth was flat.

Answer 7

First of all, the earth isn't round. Check out www.flatearthsociety.net. Secondly, that idiot discovered the Dominican Republic, not the United States. I've heard it was either and irish monk named Brendan(or something) who sailed across the Atlantic to what is know either Rhode Island or Long Island(again or something), or Leif Erickson when the vikings founded a settlement in Newfoundland(aptly named), but they were wiped out by the Beothuk tribe. And since Newoundland is in canada, that might not count either?

Answer 8

yes and no, it was his therory that it was round, along with others, but at the time it had not been proven

however, columbus never discovered the united states, he never set foot on any part of what is now the united states. anyone that tells you he did is full of it.

the reason it is the united states of America rather than columbia? Amerigo Vespucci explored the area that is now the united states.