8. Columbus Proved the Earth Was Round
It’s often said that Christopher Columbus set out to prove the Earth was round, but this isn’t accurate. Educated Europeans had known the Earth was spherical for centuries before Columbus’s 1492 voyage. What set Columbus apart was his miscalculation of the planet’s circumference—he believed Asia was much closer to Europe than it actually was. His journey didn’t prove the world’s shape; it simply revealed the existence of continents previously unknown to Europeans. The myth persists, but history tells a different story.
