Christopher Columbus.

It's hard to think of any historical figure whose stock has fallen faster in my lifetime.

Columbus was revered in my youth, an icon.

Now he is widely regarded as a despicable villain.

And today, I want to dissect a myth about Columbus that you might have learned in school.

Not the myth that

he discovered America. We all know that's baloney. I'm talking about another myth that he crossed

the Atlantic Ocean to prove that the world was round. I certainly remember learning that in school,

and I hate to break it to people, but that is complete bunk. Still, the story of how that myth took hold is instructive.

The tale begins with the ancient Greeks.

It winds its way through Copernicus, and even includes a cameo by Rip Van Winkle.

But however fascinating, this story should also embarrass us, because it shows that the

true fools here were not the

medieval folks who supposedly believed the world was flat, but us modern folks who were

dumb enough to think they ever did.

This is The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Keen, a topsy, tervey, sciencey history podcast, where footnotes become the real story.

As far back as the 500s BC, the Greek mathematician Pythagoras argued that the world was round.

And he was not alone.

Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, they all agreed.

They based this conclusion on simple observations.

For instance, if a ship appears over the horizon,

its mast appears before its hull. That makes sense only on a curved surface. In addition,

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