Everyone Thought That The Earth Is Flat

While there are many historical misconceptions and myths associated with Christopher Columbus's life, including the myth that he was the first European to set foot on American soil, one persistent one is connected to a larger historical misconception that no one knew the Earth was round until relatively recently. Numerous tales of Columbus's journey continue to assert that his round of the globe proved the Earth was round for the first time, shattering the prevalent belief at the time that it wasn't.

That's in spite of the fact that, according to one historian, practically everyone has known the Earth is round from at least the third century BC, at least in the Western world. That discovery had been made as early as 600 BC by philosophers, mathematicians, and other experts, and it would have been well-known long before Columbus's expedition.