![]() ![]() ![]() The idea that the crew of the Santa Maria were terrified of tumbling over the edge was the invention of Washington Irving, creator of Rip Van Winkle, whose fanciful 19th-century biography of Columbus provided a heroic foundation story for the United States.Īs Christine Garwood documents in her fascinating book Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea, the leading figures in 19th- and 20th-century flat-earthery were a marginal and unsophisticated bunch of cranks: Samuel Birley Rowbotham, who spoke to packed but mocking houses in Victorian England Lady Elizabeth Blount, the philanthropist wife of a Shropshire baronet and a signwriter from Dover called Samuel Shenton, given unexpected exposure by the indulgent astronomer Patrick Moore. Every significant thinker has believed the earth is a globe since Pythagoras in the 6th Century BC. ![]() Five minutes on Google dispelled that myth. I had a dim, primary-school recollection that the bishops who tried to turn Queen Isabella against Christopher Columbus thought the world was flat, as did all his crew. ![]()
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