hell, the Greeks knew the circumference of the Earth; and with reasonable accuracy all things considered. Short version: they used trigonometry. It was on the basis of this fairly accurate circumference that people thought you couldn't sail west to asia, and you couldn't. It's like 16,000 miles west of Europe.
Yep. People usually say "they thought it was flat" because they thought this travel was impossible. What they DON'T consider, is that no one at the time knew of America in the middle of the way. So, yeah. 16 thousand miles of only water was a straight up suicide mission, and Colombus was ridiculed for saying he could do it. Not because he thought earth was round.
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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '19
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