“Christopher Columbus did not set sail in 1492 to prove the Earth was round; educated Europeans already accepted the Earth's spherical shape before Columbus's voyage.”

Columbus' enterprise to find a westward route to Asia grew out of the practical experience of a long and varied maritime career, as well as out of his considerable reading in geographical and theological literature.

Today it is generally known that the Earth is a sphere, or very close to one (its equator bulges out a bit because of the Earth's rotation). Christopher Columbus too knew that the Earth was round, when he proposed to reach India by sailing west from Spain, he too knew that the Earth was round. Sometimes the claim is made that those who opposed Columbus thought the Earth was flat, but that wasn't the case at all. Even in ancient times sailors knew that the Earth was round and scientists not only suspected it was a sphere, but even estimated its size.

When he set out, he carried with him a commission from the king and queen of Spain, empowering him 'to discover and acquire certain islands and mainland in the ocean sea' and to be 'Admiral and Viceroy and Governor therein.'

Aristotle provided convincing proof of Earth’s roundness in the fourth century BCE... This knowledge was preserved and transmitted through the Roman Empire and into medieval times... By the 13th century, the Earth’s spherical shape was regarded as established scientific fact, with influential scientists, thinkers, and clergymen such as Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, and Johannes de Sacrobosco all agreeing with this premise.

Claudius Ptolemy produced his eight-volume treatise, Geographia, around 150 CE in Alexandria. His work unveiled the notion of latitude and longitude—the planar coordinate system that established locations for different lands, mountain ranges, and bodies of water on the spherical Earth. The rediscovery, translation, and printing of Ptolemy's Geographia in fifteenth-century Italy revolutionized ideas about cosmology.

In reality, though, Columbus never feared sailing off the edge of the world. As historian Jeffrey Burton has noted, “No educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the Earth was flat.” History tells us that as early as 600 B.C., the Ancient Greeks made observations consistent with a spherical Earth. What kept many wealthy individuals in Portugal and Spain from wanting to fund Columbus's trip? In a nutshell, his crazy circumference calculations. While Columbus knew the Earth was round, he calculated its circumference 25 percent smaller than it actually is.

Claudius Ptolemy, a Greco-Roman scholar working in 2nd century Alexandria, produced one of the most influential geographical works in human history. In his first book, Ptolemy discusses the challenge of projecting the spherical Earth onto a flat surface, proposing several mathematical projections to solve this problem. This section is where Ptolemy most clearly establishes his belief that geography could—and should—be grounded in mathematical precision.

In his work Geographia, written about AD 150, Ptolemy described and compiled all knowledge about the world's geography in the Roman Empire of the 2nd century. The first part discusses the problems of projections, that is, representing spherical item such as the earth on a flat sheet of paper. Ptolemy's Geographia was a worldwide best seller of ancient times and was immensely influential for many influential explorers, most notably Christopher Columbus.

It's true that medieval folks believed the Earth to be at the center of the universe. Aristotle had said that, too. The myth that medieval people believed the Earth was flat is just that: a myth. Educated medieval Europeans knew the Earth was round.

The story that Christopher Columbus set sail in 1492 amidst disputes involving the shape of the earth, with most people believing it to be flat, is simply not true. In fact, most people at that time believed the earth to be round. Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell states, 'With extraordinary few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat.'

There are quite a few myths about Christopher Columbus and his famous 1492 expedition, the most common of which claims that he set out to prove the earth was round. In this episode of I Never Knew That, editor Catherine sets the record straight and explains the real reason the explorer embarked on his three-ship voyage for Spain.

Throughout much of the 20th century and even into the 21st, the myth that medieval Europeans believed in a flat earth – disproved by the voyages of Columbus – has persisted. Round earth belief began with the ancient Greeks and predominated in medieval Europe. The medieval flat earth myth became established in the 19th and 20th centuries due to the desire of scholars to build the reputation of Columbus and to present a critical view of the medieval church.

Christopher Columbus is remembered by many Americans as the person who 'discovered' America. His name and likeness exist all over the nation's public landscape.

Columbus led his three ships - the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria - out of the Spanish port of Palos on August 3, 1492. His objective was to sail west until he reached Asia (the Indies) where the riches of gold, pearls and spice awaited.

Primary medieval sources like Bede's 'The Reckoning of Time' (725 CE) explicitly describe the Earth as a sphere: 'It is... a sphere set in the middle of the whole universe.' This was standard in scholarly works, refuting the flat Earth myth which originated in 19th-century anti-religious polemics.

Most accounts of Columbus’s voyages mistake his motives by focusing narrowly on economic or political factors. But in fact, his primary motive was to find enough gold to finance a crusade to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims, as evidenced by a letter he wrote in December 1492.