Did Columbus discover that the world was round?

Question

Because I thought that they already knew at that time.

Answer 1

No, Galileo predicted the world was round. in 1942, most people knew the world was round, but some people were skeptical.

Answer 2

Okay...first of all, John_hol is right...the Greeks knew that the world was round...Copernicus had even proved it mathematically (even with a close estimate to the size of the earth), and by 1492, the middle of the Renaissance...people even had GLOBES in their homes!
Columbus didn't prove anything! He "discovered " a land that was ALREADY POPULATED....and he thought he was in INDIA...now, I've been lost before...But HALF a planet away is about as lost as you can get!!
The whole idea that Columbus "proved" the world was round is fiction...written in the 1700's by Washington Irving in his biography of Columbus. He didn't have many facts...so, to make the story more "dramatic" he literally MADE IT UP!
Irving was by far the most popular writer of his time...his stories (Rip Van Winkle...The Legend of Sleepy Hollow...etc)
are still told today. His stories were so popular that somehow they made their way into history books as "fact" for many years.
I hope this answers your question and puts the whole idea that Columbus was a great person to rest!
Good Luck to you!

Answer 3

I would look at it this way: Yes, most educated people believed by then that the world was round, but no one important had actually put it to the test. (Eric the Red didn't just boldly sail across the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.) So it did take a fair amount of guts to put the theory to the test and sail out there where some people were still saying you'd fall of the edge. Whatever tarnish may have shown up on Columbus' achievement over the years, he wasn't a coward.

Answer 4

I think they already knew the world was round by then. I remember that Columbus was looking for another route to the orient. They didn't know there were whole continents in the way.

Answer 5

The truth is Columbus and most educated people knew the
world was round at that time. Columbus in fact miscalculated
how far away India was. If the Americas hadn't existed,either
the ships would have been lost at sea or the crews would have mutinied. It all turned out well,but it was more dumb luck than anything else.

Answer 6

yep they already knew that at the time. There has been no evidence that people that the earth was wrong. That comes only from stories we are told as kids. In fact columbus thought the world was pear shaped

Answer 7

The roundness of the earth has been mentioned in ancient religious books of India which were written some 3000 years BC. All that Columbus did is that he drifted to a nation which was already inhabited.

Answer 8

Wow! OK, here's the deal: the Greeks, by about 450 BCE, knew the earth was round, more or less, because they understood, from observation, that it cast a curved shadow on the Moon during eclipses.. After that time, EVERY educated person knew the Earth was more or less spherical - the problem then (as it seems to be now) was a shortage of educated persons. The other problem was estimating the SIZE of the more or less spherical Earth. Sheesh!

Answer 9

no, i don't think so, he didn't even discover the US, the native americans were allready there, and every columbus day some native american protesters come over to spain with a flag saying "hey look everyone look what we found"
haha i love that story, but it's kinda sad

Answer 10

no, the idea that people thought the earth was flat is an absurd myth. erastophanes the greek proved the earth had a circumphrence of 25000 miles in 300 bc. they realized the earth was round a century before that.

Answer 11

yes he knew before he sent off for the spice island. If he didnt he most likey wouldnt try to get to them.He would think he would fall off of the side of the earth.