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POV: You're an explorer in the late 1400s planning your voyage.
(media.piefed.world)
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this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2025
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CartographyAnarchy
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Also you are about 30% sure the world is a sphere, probably, maybe
Nobody at that time thought the world was flat. It wouldn't even make sense to try to reach India by going the other way if it wasn't a globe. The whole "Columbus thought the world is flat" thing is completely bunk.
Calm down, just saying it wasnt 'confirmed' until then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth that was the time we finally managed to circumnavigate the earth for the first time
I believe they knew it was round long before the voyage because the curve of the shadow of the earth on the moon(during lunar eclipse) proved it.
I know, but that was the time they first proved it by circumnavigating (and not the other means), that why I wrote 'confirmed'.
Seeing a curved shadow on the moon was 100% confirmation as it would be impossible with a flat earth.
Tell that to your average sailor in the 1400s
I'm sure they did. That's why the sailors were okay with trying to sail around the world despite having no "proof".
The people in the 1400s weren't idiots. The average person knew the earth was round for basically the same reasons you do. Ships get lower as they sail away. Earths shadow is round. The moon is round. Someone told them it's round, and it's been common knowledge for 1000 years.
The evidence for the world being flat isn't so compelling that you're going to go to great lengths to argue the point in most cases, and if you're convinced it is then being told that someone went around it isn't going to actually convince you if someone telling you it's round isn't enough.
Didn’t we know this since the time of the ancient Greeks?
I believe the church made sure we forgot it and I think we had never 'tested' if the world is truly a sphere until trying to circumnavigate the world (though there are other ways to test it). Could be wrong, been a while, lets see if someone more informed can help
Pretty sure ancient Greeks also calculated the size of it as well. I can see the church wanting to spin their own narrative. But I suspect the educated knew better. (Though that would be an extremely small percentage of the population.) though I would imagine someone like Columbus would know. Or at least talked with people who would know. Maybe his sailors not so much?
Oh they knew, but the church monopolized knowledge for a while, preached geocentrism and stuff. The great navigations were a culmination of science progress and trade pushing for new routes to be found
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth
To be fair it was logical back then, the idea how big the universe really is is too much even for today people.