Columbus Knew the Earth Was Round (and so did everyone else)

Did Christopher Columbus prove the world was round? Or are we guilty of underestimating the intelligence of our Medieval counterparts? Watch this video to discover how modern historians used fake news to shape our view of an often misunderstood era of human history.

Hosted by: Indy Neidell & Spartacus Olsson
Written by: James Newman
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: James Newman
Edited by: Karolina Dołęga
Sound design: Marek Kamiński

Sources:
Picture of the statue of Aristarchus courtesy of Jastrow from Wikimedia
Maps courtesy of David Rumsey Historical Map Collection

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

[TimeGhost]

It is rather ironic that the two 19th century historians who helped propagate the myth of Columbus versus the flat earth church did so out of their conviction for science and reason. It certainly points out the danger of fake histories making their way into a mainstream historical narrative, as the pervasiveness of their writing continues to be felt in schools across the Americas to this day.

As myths and conspiracy theories multiply and spread rapidly in our current era, do you think that myths made up today will make it into the mainstream historical narrative hundreds of years from now?

[astrobullivant]

People often think that because Medieval people believed in Geocentrism, i.e., that the Sun went around the Earth, they must have believed that the Earth was flat. They confuse those two completely different hypotheses.

[rosiello]

And fun fact, the learned men of Salamanca were right. Columbus had severely miscalculated the circumference of the earth and they argued that, given the distance between Spain and Japan, he and his crew would surely starve. In fact Columbus was lucky America stood between Spain and his intended destination.

[LuxiBelle]

Columbo was about to leave Spain and kept saying "Just one more thing" until they gave him a fleet.

[jimbob]

Thanks for debunking this myth. It is indeed an excellent debunking. I first learned that the notion that medieval Europeans thought the earth was flat was nonsense when I read St. Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologica. Yes, the leading Catholic intellectual of the 13th Century acknowledged that the earth is round in the first chapter of his most famous theological treatise. I didn't get much further than that in Summa Theologica, but did some more research to discover that even the ancient Greeks knew this fact as you so well and succinctly describe.

[magnum]

This is a great video, I instantly showed it to my father who works at a University in Germany as a historian. The myth of the flat world in medieval times was his subject for a long time. He even did a podcast for a South-German Radio-Station. There were lots of people writing him letters and calling him claiming that this can't be true since they learned in school that people in the middle ages thought the earth was flat. Really shows how deeply rooted this myth is in society. He thoroughly enjoyed this video, keep it up guys :)

[pineapplethief]

“[T]he astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion—that the earth, for instance, is round: the astronomer by means of mathematics (i.e., abstracting from matter), but the physicist by means of matter itself.”
This is a quote from Thomas Aquinas, dated ~ 1265-1274. Medieval catholic monks were much more educated than flat-earthers of 21st century.

[YourTypicalMental]

I love it when Indy and Spartacus share the screen.

[andreaswidham]

One mistake I feel many people make when they think about the past is that they make the mistake of equating lack of knowledge with stupidity. This makes it much easier to believe junk like this myth. Our ancestors where not any dumber or smarter then we are today. If they where either the world we live in, their future, would be a very different place.

[MrCorbeau]

Seeing the title I thought : "Well, I already know about this". Then I ended up watching it and still learned some things : That's the magic your channel wields.

[joseantoniogarciamoreno]

It would be a nice touch to mention that Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy portraits the Earth as an sphere... (which as you mentioned, was common knowledge back then)

[Cohac]

You (meaning the entire Timeghost team, not just the presenters) are probably among my favorite youtubers ever. I've long had a shallow but wide interest in history, and having easy access to regular history lessons is great!

[disturbedNeutrino]

Ahhh... 19th century. The origin of flat Earth and horned viking helmets.

[m.j.vazquez]

i tried telling my college professor this and he would not have it even stating hes a historian and his friend is a historian and he would tell you they thought the world was flat ( ironically it was shortly after we were discussing how great Socrates was for telling the " experts " they were wrong )

[richardross]

I really enjoy when you guys co-host. You play off of each other very well. Good Luck, Rick

[dogslobbergardens]

I have long since given up arguing with people who claim to believe the earth is flat, but I enjoyed this anyway.

[ErikHare]

I realize that European history is all that is relevant to this topic, however it's important to note that Persian, Indian, and Chinese scientists independently realized the planet is round at about the same time, 2500-2000 years ago. The question has always been about the size of the plant and, not trivially, the size of Asia.

[stump]

There may be more people TODAY that think the world is flat.

[IrishTechnicalThinker]

Fantastic video. I've also discovered that the Vikings aswell knew the earth was round because they sailed distances that appears calculated for curvature.

[darthbee]

Didn't expect to learn about the history of how a false idea appeared, developed and propagated across the space and time but here we are (and I am thankful for it!)