r/Millennials • u/Mental_Freedom_1648 • 11h ago
Discussion Did you also "learn" Columbus set out to prove the world is round?
I'm just wondering how widespread this myth was when we were kids.
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u/Sell_The_team_Jerry 11h ago
I learned he was looking for a shortcut to India for the spice trade.
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u/oOtium 11h ago
Aka he was betting that the world was round heading in the opposite direction.
He just didn't know how big the world was.
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u/Sell_The_team_Jerry 11h ago
They had a good idea. Greeks had calculated the circumference nearly 2,000 years before
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u/Vegetable_Log_3837 9h ago
I remember learning that everyone knew the earth was round, and roughly how big it was. Columbus thought it was much smaller, allowing him to sail to India. The people that sent him expected him to die before reaching India and never return, which is probably what would have happened if he didn’t find the Caribbean.
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u/Gregory_VII 9h ago
Yeah this is what I was taught too. That Columbus had miscalculated the circumference thinking the Earth was smaller than the generally accepted number.
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u/blueavole 11h ago
There were rumors of Vikings finding what is now Greenland and Newfoundland.
We don’t know exactly what he thought- but he may have hoped to find something.
But ‘something’ doesn’t sell, so he floated the hope of finding a quicker route to spice islands to get funded.
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u/oOtium 11h ago
Yeap, Eratosthenes. I've seen that episode of Cosmos by Carl Sagan.
But there's always doubt and uncertainity in the things that aren't proven to the most simple minds. Think about how many truths exist that people simply refuse to believe today. Especially truths that are rooted in math/calculations. And you're also taking the word of the person who took those measurements.
For them, the truth is they had never officially sailed around the world. Maybe the lie Colombus told for funding was for a shortcut to India if he knew better but I doubt it.
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u/Contemporary_Scribe 11h ago edited 11h ago
Which is hilarious. Like maybe it would be shorter if we just sail around the world,
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u/CageTheFox 11h ago
I was taught that there was a disagreement with the Queen at the time about how large the world actually was not that it was round or not. That was also a lie as well mind you.
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u/Constant-Skill-7133 8h ago
Yeah everybody knew the world was round. Columbus did some very bad math and thought China was where eastern North America is. They thought he was setting out on a year long trip with 80 days of supplies.
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u/DubiousAdviceGiver 11h ago
Africa is pretty big and inconvenient to sail around 🤷🏻♂️ Even after the east and west coasts of the Americas were charted, European governments (and later the US government) funded expeditions to find the Northwest Passage, as that would have still been a more efficient route to Asian markets than going around the Cape of Good Hope.
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u/Turbulent_Tart_8801 Millennial 1985 9h ago
Yup. The same guy who found what would become New York for the Dutch (and "bought" Manhattan Island from the natives) ended up disappearing in the Canadian Arctic searching for the passage.
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u/DubiousAdviceGiver 8h ago
Interestingly, thanks to receding sea ice, cargo ships have passed through the actual northwest passage a number of times now. It’s still a little bit too far north to be very practical now that the Panama Canal exists, but it is a viable alternative route during the summer months.
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u/IanCrapReport 9h ago
I think at that time the secret to getting around the cape of good hope was still being kept by the Portuguese. It’s actually interesting how they got around it.
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u/Neither_Internal_261 11h ago
I had a text book that mentioned this back in like 3rd or 4th grade and they even had an illustration that showed one of his ships approaching the "edge of the world" and it was a massive waterfall as if he was about to sail over the edge. /Absolutely insane that they taught us this. For reference, this was the early 90s, and I'm sure someone will comment "I went to school in the early 90s and they didnt teach US that" well good for you but they definitely taught us that.
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u/Migraine_Megan 10h ago
It is criminal that where you live in the country determines the quality of your education. It varies dramatically from state to state
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u/Oddisredit 8h ago
I went to a top 10 county in the 90s. I’m still shocked at how dumb everything was. I thought everyone was dumb, then I got a job and then went to college. Everyone is really dumb
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u/Migraine_Megan 6h ago
I went to one of the worst school districts in WA state for most of my k-12 years. Moved to FL in my 20s. Everyone there had a worse education that I got and it blew my mind. I also went to 5 high schools and saw the disparity between the 3 states I lived in. It comes down to how much the state will fund and promote education
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u/Oddisredit 6h ago
Oh it’s true. I’m not disagreeing. I’m just saying that even high achieving school systems are not even that good. Basically until magnet, it’s just silliness. I was offered to go magnet school in Third grade, I turned it down as it involves commuting almost all the way across the county
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u/jaquelinealltrades 11h ago
I remember this pic
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u/Neither_Internal_261 11h ago
Hell yeah I was hoping I wasn't the only one that remembered seeing this!
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u/ceruleanmoon7 Millennial - 1986 10h ago
Yes I remember this. I also remember the names of his 3 ships. Useless information, fuck him.
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u/Safe-Ad-8921 2h ago
I think so much of our early education is really, just good natured myths that got way out of hand. Like the cherry tree thing. There really isnt any good reason for people to popularize Columbus. America is named after a different guy who actually did land here, not to mention the evidence found of vikings all over eastern canada.
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u/seanular 11h ago
"The world isn't flat, it's round as can be!
And I will prove it, I'll prove it you'll see!"
-Lyrics from a 4thish grade play thing my school did. I was a monk, and I was in charge of curtains.
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u/Savingskitty 11h ago
You’re either mixing up Magellan and Columbus, or your teachers did.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a teacher mix them up.
My civics teacher in high school insisted that the Jamestown settlement had disappeared. I had just visited it the prior summer, but she would hear none of it, even when I told her she was thinking of the Roanoke Colony.
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u/Mental_Freedom_1648 11h ago
It is a thing people used to believe.
https://www.history.com/articles/christopher-columbus-never-set-out-to-prove-the-earth-was-round
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u/Appropriate-Bug-6467 10h ago
Millenials parents were taught Columbus discovered America.
Millenials were the first generation to be taught enmasse that wasn't true.
That's why old people celebrate Columbus day and we don't.
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u/LoseAnotherMill 10h ago
He was the last one of the Old World to discover it. Since Columbus, it never left any maps.
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u/Turbulent_Tart_8801 Millennial 1985 9h ago
I got the old Columbus story in first and second grade, and then got something closer to the true story in 5th grade.
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u/Savingskitty 11h ago
If they took Irving’s account as factual, yes.
That’s why I said your teachers were mixed up.
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u/Mental_Freedom_1648 11h ago
My point is that this was more widespread than a few teachers making a mistake, like your Civics teacher.
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u/Savingskitty 10h ago
I didn’t say it was just a few teachers. It’s an easy thing to get confused about.
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u/jormundgand20 11h ago
My science teachers couldn't decide if blood was blue when it was deoxygenated all through school. Every year it changed.
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u/FanBladeFleshlight 10h ago
I "learned" that he was a white dude from Spain who was the very first person to land here and made happy nice nice with the Indians and that's why we have thanksgiving.
Later in life I learned that none of that was true, and that he was responsible for a miniature genocide as a partial result of getting lost and winding up WAY off course because he was an inept fool.
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u/Zelcron 8h ago edited 8h ago
He was such a monster that the Catholic church, hot off the Inquisition, had to tell him to chill
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u/thejoeface 3h ago
He would enslave people and send them back home, where they would be freed and letters sent back to him telling him to stop.
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u/VikDamnedLee Xennial 11h ago
Yep, they pushed that on us in elementary school (Upstate NY in the 80's) but corrected it when I hit Jr High.
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u/Turbulent_Tart_8801 Millennial 1985 9h ago
Same for me in the 90s (also in NY). I was even in first grade in 1992, so I got to learn about the "mythical" version of Columbus on the 500th anniversary. IIRC the teacher had a couple of kids go up to the chalkboard and subtract 1992-500 to find out what year it was exactly that the first voyage took place.
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u/Mental_Freedom_1648 8h ago
I was in NY in the first grade as well. I guess this was something that was just part of the NYS curriculum at that time.
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u/Geedeepee91 11h ago
He was looking for a new trade route to India for spices to bypass ottoman controlled trade routes as well as to avoid the high taxes/fees of the Portuguese controlled African routes
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u/Blathithor 11h ago
I heard he was looking for a spice route. They already knew the world was round back then
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u/hidden-jim 11h ago
Maybe it’s Mandela effect, but wasn’t there a looney tunes thing about that? Columbia is trying to convince the king and queen of Spain that it’s round and he’s kicked out of their court with his blasphemous “globe”
Then bugs is on the ship with him creating problems…
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u/Butthole_Surfer_GI 11h ago
I learned that it was a woodworm that planted the idea in his head.
(joke)
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u/_Belted_Kingfisher Millennial 11h ago
Yes.
The follow up question is, for people with children above 3rd or 4th grade, do the text books still say this?
For more reasonable textbooks what do they say instead?
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u/Chaz_Cheeto 11h ago
No. We learned he was traveling to the “Indies.” My parents used to tell me that it was to prove the earth was round.
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u/SpiralBreeze 11h ago
I had a Jewish teacher who ranted and raved about how the only thing Columbus did was kill thousands of people. I literally don’t know anything else about him.
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u/bitsybear1727 10h ago
No, I learned that he was looking for a new route to India because he knew it was round and it only makes sense that if you kept going you'd run into it eventually.
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u/Conscious-Record2655 8h ago
I learned that Columbus set out to find a faster route to India for spices.
As an aside, all this "we were taught wrong" stuff. I was a good student that studied and got good grades. Graduated 2004. The vast majority of my schoolmates, throughout our entire educational experience, screwed around, ignored the teacher, and generally didn't actually pay attention or try to learn. They tried to teach you, but you didn't care back then.
Nowadays, whenever I hear someone post online about how they were "never taught" or "taught wrong", I'd ask what kind of grades you got when you were a kid. Because chances are they did teach you, you just didn't care to listen.
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u/Intelligent_Show_406 10h ago
Anyone remember The Magic Voyage (1992) animated movie? Pretty sure that was the basic plot.
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u/dudestir127 1988 8h ago
I "learned" that he was trying to find a new route to India for the spice trade, and he gambled that the world was round when everyone else thought the world was flat and expected him to sail right off the edge.
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u/uncledeathbomb Still Preoccupied with 1985 8h ago
As someone with a Native mom and family still on the rez, I learned from a young age that he was a murdererous sack of shit.
That talking point did not go over well in a small town Midwest elementary school in the early 90s.
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u/Kitchener1981 7h ago
I heard that from Looney Toons, but I can't remember what I was taught in school.
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u/Bright_Pressure_6194 4h ago
Well,yes, i also watched looney tunes where I got most of my history education.
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u/crammed174 Millennial 53m ago
They taught us that he would sit on the docks and see the ships come up over the horizon, so he successfully deduced that the world was round which was heresy at the time and decided to sail the other way for a shortcut to India. So that’s why when he landed in the New World he called the natives Indians because he supposedly thought he actually reached India and that’s where the misnomer came from.
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u/Automatic-Effect-252 11h ago
Yes we were, you know what else is nuts, finding out the Columbus never actually set foot in the continental United States.
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u/DullCartographer7609 Millennial 10h ago
As we uncover more history that's been lost to time, we find the history books need to be rewritten.
Columbus knew the earth was round, he knew there was a landmass in between the Atlantic and Pacific, and he knew a way there was going west.
Why? Because he had a treasure trove of ancient maps the Jesuits had saved during the Inquisition. There were (and still are, if the conspiracies are true and the Vatican still has them), countless maps showing various island chains in the Pacific, the West and east coast of the Americas, Newfoundland, Antartica, etc.
We knew this in the 60s and 70s, but the claim was generally dismissed because scientists were still debating the merits of carbon dating, or simply didn't believe them. Still to this day, archeology dismisses the available technology before the Europeans figured it out.
There's plenty of conspiracies to "cover the truth", and I won't go through that here. The victors get to write history.
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