February 11, 2026 • 41 mins
So many people grew up hearing the myth that Columbus proved the Earth was round. It's a great story— but it's also utter bunk! In today's episode, Ben and Max get to the bottom of this ridiculous tale, and learn how most of civilization knew the Earth was round way earlier than those old school textbooks would have you believe.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. And now let's hear it for
our super producer, none other than the man himself, Max
flat Earth Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I'm here and I'm like Kyrie Irving, I don't believe
the Earth is round. Just kidding, No, the Earth is round.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Okay, okay, you know that's an on air one eighty
from all the memes you've been sending me low these
many years. Our our colleague, my brother in podcast arms,
mister Noel Brown is on Adventures, will be returning very soon.
They call me Ben Bollen in various parts of the world,
(01:07):
and on this show in particular. Now we're going to
do something a little bit different today, folks, as Noel
is on his various adventures and quest that we can't
wait to hear about very soon. I have made a
bit of a covenant off air, and I've asked you
(01:27):
Max Williams, to serve some double duty as as a
guest co host here. So can I get you to
confirm on air that you're okay with that?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah, Frank, I was kind of tempted to tell you
no and make you just do the episode solo. But
they'll just chime in periodically, Yeah, just like once every
like fifteen to twenty minutes with just like random facts,
just seeing how awkward that be. But you know, I
actually have to listen to the episode a couple times
through the edit, and I don't know if I would
be able to get through all that cringe.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Well, I am going to choose to appreciate that. And
I did cut my teeth, as you know, over the
decade plus now, I've cut my teeth doing some solo podcasting,
respect where it's due. I learned a lot of that
(02:20):
from our own nemesis, Jonathan Strickland aka the Twister. R
pal Dylan Fagan and I had had a show that
I soloed for a while called Strange News Daily. But
I couldn't be more pleased to have you riding with
us in the in the front seat here of this
(02:41):
episode's car. The car of this episode.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
It's yeah, it's got a driving around the world.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
The car. We're just driving around the world. So thank
you again, Max. This is this is going to be
a weird and interesting for us and I know that
it calls out to both of us specifically. This is
the story of how humans figured out Earth was round Earth.
(03:18):
Right as planets go, it's pretty great. I would say
three out of five.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, three and a half. I mean, it doesn't boil
us instantly, but it's no Riza.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
There we go right and Max, you and Noel and
myself and everybody that we have ever met, and everybody
that you've ever met, fellow ridiculous historians, was born here
on Earth. Human civilization, probably allegedly, so far as we know,
human civilization has spent thousands upon thousands of years learning
(03:53):
about this planet and all the things on or around it.
Surprisingly enough, here in twenty twenty six, there's still so
much more to learn along the way. We got a
few things wrong.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, a couple of things wrong. And I mean, I
guess the topic of today's episode is kind of one
of these myths that I know I grew up with
at least, and I'm assuming you group as well. I
don't know if it's gotten out of it, but I
remember being in like first second grade that whenever what
is it October November, that day you're reading the books
you're learning about how this guy's Italian who was sailing
(04:30):
for Spain, went across the Atlantic Ocean, this real heroic
journey and discovered that not only was there another giant
land mass there, but that the Earth was round like
all of these things. And then later to find out
that while this guy did exist and he did sail
(04:53):
across the Atlantic Ocean to this continent, all the contexts
around this was lies. And also this guy sucks.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah. Yeah, The beginning of the old rhyme goes in
fourteen hundred and ninety two Columbus sailed the Ocean blue.
A lot of us in the audience are going to
be familiar with this funny tall tale, Like you said, Max,
the idea that most of human civilization thought the Earth
was flat all the way up to the fourteen hundreds
(05:23):
when a real drip, a real pill named Crystal Baal
Cologne sailed the ocean and proved, hey, you don't actually
fall off the edge. It's a great story. It turns
out it is absolute fiction. And in today's episode we
are going to figure out when people actually learned the
(05:45):
Earth is round? And Max, when you and I are
are doing our bit as research associates for our various episodes.
You and I in particular like to include little Easter
eggs right for Noel and myself, little things in the
(06:05):
notes that are not going to make it on the air,
or sometimes do. And just want you to know. The
top heading here is for us. I wasn't going to
say it on air, but I think we should. And
I want to thank you in advance for the beep
that you're about to give yourself. Can you give us
(06:27):
the title?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Oh yeah, life used to be terrifying and no one
knew what was going on. Beep beep.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
That's about the size of it, right exactly?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I mean, yeah, I mean, depending on your origin story
or origin belief, it's not going to sit here or
stand here in my case and tell you what to believe.
One thing that can be agreed upon. Humans have been
around for a while, and for the vast majority of
time that humans have been around, survival has not been
(07:02):
the easiest thing. So if you're gonna sit around trying
to debate, I wonder if this world is round, you're
gonna probably just starve or get a cut and die
or be eaten by something. You're really kind of more
focused on this whole you know, surviving thing.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, yeah, it's easy to take the shape of the
earth for granted today, or the shape of planets in general.
And it's also for most of human history, for most
people who lived and died here. It was a very academic,
non important point. It's not the shape of the earth
(07:42):
is not something you can easily see with your own eyes,
because humans are in general very small in comparison to
the scale of the Earth. And you know, this has
happened to all of us in the audience tonight. You
have maybe traveled to a very flat part of the world,
like the endless plays of Iowa, or the Upper Midwest
(08:04):
here in the United States, or maybe the right kind
of desert environment. Then you get out and you look
around and it really does look flat. It looks like
it's just flat. It goes on forever. As a result,
you know, we cannot blame ancient peoples and communities for
looking around and shrugging and saying, uh, yeah, I guess
(08:25):
that's the uh, that's the edge of the place. And
this reminds us of one of our absolute favorite video
game series or franchises, folks. Max and I are huge
fans of a game called Civilization so much so that
(08:47):
we will text each other about it. We will, we will.
Actually we've actually held off recordings sometimes just to talk
about updates on Civilization.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yeah, it's a common go to for when we're QA
and stuff, so like listening through, you know, our ears
are occupied and I'm like, I'll start a play through
with Sweden before we really dive into this. Have you
converted to SIV seven yet or are you still on
SIV six?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
I'm I'm I'm still one controversial right now. I'm still
on SI six bro because it's uh, I'll even go
back to CIV five, but I'm still on Civilization six because,
like you said, it becomes a kind of comforting activity.
The way the game is designed is brilliant and it's psychological. Uh,
(09:41):
it's psychological manipulation to keep you just just rewarding you
a little bit every turn and keeping your attention.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
But not hit stuff down.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah. Yeah, And there's something comforting and pleasing and the
repetition and the progress. It's it's similar to like a
fidget spinner almost, or for some people in the audience,
it's similar to uh, playing with the rosary. You know,
it continues, it continues ed, what about you, Max, What's
(10:13):
first off, what's the controversy between Civilization seven versus six?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Well, first and foremost, said Rosary, which after playing a
Hollow Night Silk Song, I cannot think of any differently
now because that's the currency in that game, and it
is the most brutal economy in any of the game ever.
That game is so hard, but it's beautiful. But I
have I have tried to go over SIB seven. The
controversy is, at least in my opinion, SIB seven is
(10:40):
not very good and SEB six is tremendous, And to
your point, also SIF five is also TREMENDOUSIF five is
way harder than SIB six in my opinion, though SIVE six,
I think is actually probably in my opinion, is pretty easy.
I tried a few months ago to go in seven,
but I just it just I think is just so
(11:00):
good that it's hard to get off of it. But hopefully,
I mean, I remember when SIM six first came out,
it took me like four or five years to get
off of SIV five to this comfort. I was talking
to my dash about this and it's like, you know, he,
you know, eighties nineties video games. He was very in
that earlier wave like first like games coming Home and
eventually we'll talk about Around at Earth by the way.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, yeah, we're getting to it.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
But he I talked to him, and it's like, the
funny thing about sim is like it's the most entertaining
game of all time, and it's also like doing your taxes.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
That's a perfect comparison, Max, because there is it's very procedural, right,
and there are formulas to learn, there are stats to
play with in balance. Here's why we're mentioning civilization the game.
We're mentioning it because civilization the phenomena gets a pretty
(11:51):
good depiction in Civilization the Game, regardless of which iteration
of civilization you play, it do this astonishing job of
depicting the experience of early ancient peoples. When you begin
the game, you've got your little tribe. You're probably placed
randomly on a world map, and at the beginning you
(12:14):
can only see a little bit of the land around you.
The rest of the world. The rest of the map
is shrouded in darkness. It only becomes visible as you
explore your planet and advance through the game.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Right, and very similar to how early people were. You
don't know what's around you, you don't know what dangers
around you, and survival is of all paramount importance. But
you know, unlike the game, you don't know you're about
to get sailing in five turns or three turns you'll
get a monument, or you're about to grow that tile
(12:49):
where you'll get a luxury resource. You're just trying to survive,
so you're not really busy try and figure out stuff
like as you wrote here, the shape of the planet,
existence on far away consonants.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, yeah, we've got at this point in history, we've
got other more practical concerns, as you said, chief of
which is not dying and staying alive, hopefully long enough
to reproduce. So these big questions of abstract concepts, like
the shape of the planet you live on, they're going
to be largely informed by religious beliefs and spiritual thoughts
(13:25):
instead of scientific inquiry. We got to tell you, we
always like to hit this point whenever we talk about
the ancient past. The people who were alive at this time,
they're not knuckleheads. They just had understandably different priorities. Civilization
(13:48):
took a while to grow. It took a while for
humans to figure out agriculture, which led to more stationary lifestyles,
and during that period, the majority of people lived and
died roughly in the same area they were born in,
So you would only have migration over long distances due
(14:09):
to social upheaval or disease or famine or war. So like,
even nomadic communities would typically have a set range of travel,
and they move back and forth from one place to
the next cyclically as the season's changed.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Right, Which makes sense because if you're going to the
same areas, you at least know what's there. You go
somewhere new, you don't know what's there, and discovering a
new place with a new biome is like basically going
to a new planet. Oh and to a point you
made a second ago about how you know people of
the past were not knuckleheads. I like to think about.
(14:48):
I like to do a thought exercise about how kind
of basically screwed I would be if you've removed away
Like some absumptions that we have in life, like I
don't know how to electrically wire something, but I can
do things with electricity, Like at least I can do
editing but if you took away electricity, I wouldn't be
able to fix it. We have this science, we have
this built up knowledge and accumulation over time. Where these
(15:11):
people were laying down the foundations of that stuff. They
don't have those foundations. So I think that's an important thing.
And to continue on that point, you know, critical thought,
construction of theory, all this stuff. Those are privileges. And
obviously you have some stuff like the early Phoenicians with
writing and stuff, but where your basic needs are not met,
it's hard to focus on other things because you have
(15:33):
to go meet these basic needs.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Yeah, well said man. You have to advance past a
certain threshold of sustainability. You have to be able to
support some contingent to people in your community who are
not constantly just trying to survive, the people who for
some reason have enough of a support structure to sit
(15:55):
down and think about stuff. And when people first reach
that threshold in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin
America Europe, there also was Okay, we eventually get the thinkers,
but we don't get a lot in the way of
fact checking. That becomes a thing way way later, and
humans are still you know, not super great at it.
(16:16):
So if you are Max Williams in the ancient past,
your understanding of the world is probably going to be
based on the statements of the local religious authority. They're
going to pitch you a story and you probably just
accept it, not because you know you are thick, as
the Brits would say or anything like that, but because
(16:38):
there aren't alternative explanations to consider. And in fact, if
you have an alternative explanation, or if you encounter one,
it's going to be treated as blasphemy. People often died
in cartoonishly gruesome ways for pitching other narratives.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, check out our two part series of the Past
where we talk about his who were horrifically punished despite
being right. It is not the cheeriest series we did,
especially the second part which is just about Alan Turing,
which is just like, this guy was right about so
many things and history did him dirty. But yeah, and
(17:16):
to that point, it's just like, you know, I might
have it even thought, but you know, I don't have
theories and stuff. I don't have a way to prove
this wrong. And also it's just the fear of it all.
Like I know, we've done a past episode on the
origins of ostracize. Yes, pots smashing him and stuff like that. Yeah,
especially you see like one guy bring up maybe maybe
the Earth is round and he gets thrown out of
(17:37):
town and it gets eaten by a lion as soon
as it gets outside. I'm not going to bring that up.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Let's also consider one of my favorite parables in this genre,
which we mentioned in that previous episode. We can never
forget that the human being is a specific type of primy.
It's the kind of prime me that will kill its
own people for politely suggesting that you wash your hands
(18:07):
before surgery. Shout out to Samulweiss. He figured out a
way to save millions of lives. They beat the crap
out of them and threw them in an asylum.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's not great, but yeah, thankfully though,
with time and evolution, this new group of people that
I think we both squarely belong in started to emerge
called nerds, and nerds like things we are kind of
(18:37):
it's kind of an obsession over things. And obviously there's
many types of nerds, but growing about people who really
liked things like geography, physics, math, space, and like, you
know what. They started doing was recording and keeping track
of this stuff, often getting horribly punished for proving things
that were right but right. If you want to hear
(19:01):
us talk more about that, check out some past episodes.
We're gonna just kind of breeze past that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Again, we just to give you the long and short
of it, folks. We cannot stress this enough. Society was
still actively killing a lot of these nerds or treating
them as absolute whack jobs. Yet a win is a win.
That's a bit of a quick context on science, religion,
the grim reality of human life. Now we get to
(19:28):
the myth. All right, we told you the pitch. The
pitch is this. The entirety of human civilization assumed the
world was flat all the way up until fourteen ninety two.
Crystal bol Cologne aka Christopher Columbus, aka a bunch of
different names that he gave himself. He sailed across the Atlantic,
he discovered the quote unquote New World, and the story,
(19:52):
the myth really paints him as a hero, and they say,
look at this, he's a ballsy guy. He convinces King
Ferd and Isabella, his Spanish patrons, to back him on
this wild, dangerous gamble and he stands up in front
of court and he says, Earth is round, and if
you give me the ships I need, I will sail
(20:13):
west and eventually I will land in Asia. Dude, this
story was so popular, he got printed textbooks, he got
taught in otherwise credible schools and halls of education. And
as you pointed out so beautifully at the top of
this episode, macks. A lot of us in the audience
(20:34):
heard this story as kids. It just happens to be
complete bunk. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
No, the story of Christopher Columbus is absolutely ridiculous. Is
just full of so much lies and propaganda and stuff.
I remember actually one time pointing out to somebody who
was trying to defend Christopher Columbus to me. They were saying, like,
he's like, oh, he's one of the greatest Americans ever.
I'm like, he literally died undreds of years before America
(21:01):
was a thank buddy. You got to realize that, Like,
I get it, I get it. I'm not going to
sit here and tell people what believe and whatnot. But
that is actually just facts right there. But yeah, I mean,
as you put it, Chrissy Boy, ain't no hero. Yeah,
never was. And this whole Earth being round, which this
(21:21):
is the problem I have with the story completely. You
tell me, this guy went in front of the King
and Queen of Spain, a superpower of the time, and
told them that they're idiots and thinking the world is flat,
and I'm gonna sell around them. And they're like, oh,
you know what, Sure, here's a couple of ships, go
do it. No, no one is that bad at investing. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, this was a shark tank moment, and the story
is unbelievable if only for that specific aspect. And there's
a historian who often gets quoted remarking about this guy
named Jeffrey Burton Russell, who points out, quote educated person
in the history of Western civilization from the third century
(22:05):
BC onward believed that the Earth was flat end quote no.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Education people living today.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yeah. Yeah, everybody's catching strays on this one. So, if anything,
Chris had funding problems because he just underestimated the size
of the planet by a cartoonish amount. He thought Earth
was way smaller than it actually is. That was the
complication in his sharp tank moment. He spent years arguing
(22:34):
with King Ferdinand's people essentially about scheduling, about how long
it would take him to travel across the sea to China.
And also, as we can tell, he had no idea
that there were two gigantic continents between Europe and Asia
if you sail west.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Right, because it's like, you know, here's the thing, as
Magellan would later find, getting even just past this big
continent is ridiculous, Like getting across the Atlantic Ocean is
a lot. Going all the way down to Chile and
around is lot, and then you have the hardest task
of it all called the Pacific Ocean, which is massive.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Massive.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
So yeah, I mean, I don't know the answer to this,
but just asking you do you do you know how
big he thought it was, Like how long it took
he thought it would take just to go from Spain
to India.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
We know he underestimated the size of the planet on
the order of like twenty five percent. He thought it
was twenty five percent the side of its actual size.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Okay, so it's kind of like sailing across a big sea,
he thought.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yes, yeah, And that's not necessarily his fault, because you know,
they have very limited information available. But we are perhaps
being a little bit too credulous when we accept this
myth entirely. So how did this myth get started in
the first place? This is cool. It did not start
(24:08):
in Columbus's time, nowhere near it. And when we think
about that, that makes sense because his contemporaries, world leaders
and scholars of the day when he was sailing, they
already knew Earth was round, So it would not make
sense for them to care about this story. It would
be such a non issue. It would be as if
(24:28):
we got together and wrote a breaking news report that
Elon Musk has proved people breathe air. Everybody would read
the headline and go, why are Yeah, we know, like
we know.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
So Weirdly enough, the myth of Columbus in the round
world didn't come until centuries after the fact, the actual
year being eighteen twenty eight, with a fiction writer. Let's
make sure to know that a fiction writer by of Washington, Irving,
who gained a interest and obsession with this guy with
(25:08):
this guy cologne, and so a little more on Irving.
He's a pretty famous writer. He published the book Rit
Van Winkle, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I'm guessing you've
heard of those ben along with other stuff. And you
know this wasn't just some bloke. This guy was out
here hobnobbing and hanging out with the rich and famous.
(25:28):
He was well known and people, you know, when this
guy said stuff, they were like, Okay, let's listen to
this guy, including you know, his friends in you know,
the politics.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Yeah, exactly. So we see this happen in our modern
age of celebrity worship. You have probably seen those weird
articles where someone will say, what does jaw Rule think
about this geopolitical event?
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Or what is your noct thinks about this?
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Where is Jah? Yeah? Irving Washington. Irving is sort of
like that guy for these people. At the time. He
is friends with some of, as you said, the most
high flutant folks in the government. One of these guys
is a dude named Alexander Hill Everett. He is the
US Minister to Spain at this point in history, being
(26:22):
called the minister to a specific country, it's pretty much
what you would call an ambassador today. So Alex hits
up his buddy Irving and says, hey, man, come kick
it with me in Madrid. It's dope af or something
to that effect. Washington. Irving takes alex up on the offer,
so he travels to Madrid, which takes a very long
time back. Then he falls in love with this huge
(26:46):
archive of documents all about Christopher Columbus. He's feeling it, man,
and if for fellow writers in the crowd, you know
what we're talking about. Irving is inspired. He knows enough
to take the inspiration whenever it comes. So he tells himself,
I'm going to write a biography of Columbus. It's going
to be the definitive biography, and I'm gonna use all
(27:08):
this stuff I'm learning about him now. And it does
make sense, Max, because despite being just a terrible person,
Christopher Columbus lives this cinematic, fascinating life. In the course
of our research for this, by the way, we found
that even after he died, he still traveled way more
(27:28):
than most Europeans.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Right, So you know, I think we should probably take
this one go back and forth just to kind of
illustrate how ridiculous of a tour his body took. So
he initially dies fifteen oh six and he's buried in Valedoilid, Spain.
I totally pronounced that correct. But then three years later
his remains get taken and put into his family mausolem
(27:54):
or mausoleum actually named after the ruler Mausulus. Yes, it's
got to be buried in maslm over in Sevea.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
And then in fifteen forty two his remains get transferred
to Santo Domingo, Hispaniola, which is now in the Dominican Republic.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
And then again a big time jump about two hundred
and fifty two hundred and fifty three years, if we
want to be specific, his bones are moved to Havana, Cuba,
and then even more later, one hundred years later, they're
shipped back across the Atlantic back to Servella. Am I
saying that one right, Sevilla Sevilla, Sevilla in eighteen ninety six,
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Yeah, So what we're saying is this guy's whole existence,
sith lord of colonialism that he may be, his whole
existence makes for a real page turner. So it also
makes sense that Irving wants to write about it. But
there's an issue that you had you had just emphasized there,
Bax a little bit earlier. Our buddy Irving is an
(28:56):
excellent writer. He's an excellent author. We're not going to
take that away from him, but he's an excellent fiction writer.
He's an excellent fiction author. So even though Chris's life
is full of strange, fascinating events, Irving can't help but
judge it up with all sorts of embellishment and tall tales.
He doesn't want the facts to get in the way
(29:17):
of a good story, like our buddy Aaron Tracy said
talking about Roald Dahl. So Irving adds a little dramatic tension,
and he claims that Chris has fought the system, that
Christopher Columbus is the first real guy to claim Earth
is round, that he bucked this system of the day,
that he beefed with the church and the geographers alike,
(29:39):
that he talked trash to the royal court, tossed a
middle finger to the haters, and single handedly revolutionized scientific thought.
This is all malarchy.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Oh yeah, all made up. But when your fam it's
like Irving, and to a point earlier in this episode,
when you don't really have people who can sit up,
stand up and just say no, you're wrong, or like,
you know, obviously there's a lot more research at this
point in time, but you know, this guy's sat here,
he's famous, He's done all this research. He says, it's true,
who's gonna call him out? He is, as you wrote
(30:19):
here in your wonderful research brief. By the way, shout
out to Ben here for this research. He is phone
book famous, meaning he could write the most boring yellow
pages or white pages even thing, and it'll be a
runaway hit because he's just that famous. And so when
he publishes this book, A History of the Life and
(30:41):
Voyages of Christopher Columbus, massive hit released in four volumes,
wild praise, breathless reviews, McGraw Hills are already putting in their textbooks.
I'm making that last part up, but it might be true.
Prove me wrong.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
In other ways, it's just it's a hit. Everyone wants it,
and everyone believes it.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yeah, everybody who can read is talking about it, and
virtually everyone who snags a copy of this considers it
to be gospel, God's honest truth. Christopher Columbus told in
detail with one hundred percent accuracy. Other authors fall for
this as well. They pick up on the thread. They
cite Washington Irving extensively, especially other famous authors like the
(31:27):
French guy Antoine Jean le Troum. This BS becomes accepted
as historical fact and That is why even today you
will still hear some people falling for the whole thing. Now,
we got to give credit where it's due. Nice one, Irving.
We don't know why you did it, but you pulled
(31:48):
it off.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Man, Thanks, Bud, You're so great, you really you know, yeah,
help that lout. But I mean, I guess you know,
are we any better than Irving if we don't tell
the truth? I mean, obviously yes we are, but not
by large enough margin that I think we should probably
dive into it. So again, you know, as we've mentioned
(32:13):
multiple times in this episode the show everything, ancient people
were just as smart as us. And you know there was,
you know, some very smart people, some very dumb people.
There's some good people, bad people, blah blah blah. They
just didn't have the same access that we have now.
They didn't have this foundation of knowledge that we had.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Right. Yeah, they had their own pantheon of pet peeves,
just like everybody does today. They had their own goals,
they had daily annoyances, fart jokes. Then is now we're
still peak comedy. Not everybody was exceptional, But I love
the point you're making, Max. The vast majority of people
are far from stupid. They just don't have They don't
(32:58):
have things like in psych with pedos right. They don't
have communication channels that allow them to see alternative viewpoints,
or the opportunity podcasts right for better or worse. I
love the idea of a medieval podcast or late antiquity podcasts.
They don't have these opportunities. But humans have always been
(33:20):
pretty good at observing the world around them. We know
as far back as the fifth century BCE they're written
explorations or speculations about Earth as a sphere that comes
from various Greek philosophers. Then you go a little further
to three hundred BCE because, as you and I were
(33:41):
talking about off air, BCE counts down.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, we see something so anxiety inducing because you're just like,
every year you're going down in number, and you're like,
what are we counting down to? How bad joke draw
myself for that one?
Speaker 1 (33:57):
No, that's great though, you know, let's keep the bad
joke going because I've always thought it had to be
weird for Jesus Christ, you know what I mean, He's
growing up and it's counting down, and he asked, he
asked God, why the system is counting down, and God
(34:18):
is like, let's put a pen in that.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
You'll know soon enough.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Exactly right. There are other jokes we could do here,
but we're gonna keep it pg. Thirteen. So all right,
it's three hundred BCE circa thereabouts, and there's a Greek
ethnographer named Megasthenes and Megas Theenes shouts out Brahman nerds
in India, and he says, these guys have already figured
(34:45):
out Earth was a sphere, although to be fair, they
did also argue that Earth is not just a sphere
but the center of the universe. This is a classic
common human mistake that was a lot.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
More work to, right. I mean, that's the one you
can just you can't really. I mean, the well known
fact is you can go by the ocean and get
on something high, you can see that the Earth is round,
it starts rounding.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
You can't go look at the stars and figure out
that we're rotating around that big bright thing that you
shouldn't stare at.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah, because the perspective is so strange. It will take
it will take a lot of other very clever people
to even prove the heliocentric model of the planets, and
then when they prove the heliocentric model for a time,
they argue that the Sun is the center of the universe.
So you know, it's a work in progress, it's a
(35:41):
learning thing. Around the same time, in this period in
BCE BCE history, Hellenistic astronomers proved the spherical shape of
Earth as a concrete fact through math. They also attempted
the first known calculations of Earth's circumference. This knowledge later
(36:03):
migrates slowly throughout Triumphant Disaster to the Romans. Then it
spreads again slowly throughout what is sometimes called the Old World,
through late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and then our
returning guests that you mentioned just a few minutes ago.
Ferdinand Magellan and company finally demonstrate the concept that the
(36:26):
Earth is round. They experientially prove it, beginning in fifteen
nineteen by literally circumnavigating the globe, sailing around the planet
in an amazing, preposterous, disastrous expedition that was, to your
earlier point, literally more dangerous than space travel is today.
(36:50):
And Magellan didn't end his story the way he would
have preferred.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Didn't he die on that journey.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I can't remember, yeah, yeah, non consensual death as well.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Did he get put in a in a barrel of
pickles like Frederick Barbarossa or did they respect his body?
Speaker 1 (37:11):
To our knowledge, he did not end up literally pickled
in a barrel. But there's a reason you're bringing this up, Max.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Oh yeah, well see that kind of just seemed to
be a thing, a thing people did. So Frederick Barbarossa,
when he was doing a crusade, how he died. We
actually have an episode of an episode about this. He
got annoyed at his army, he rode off on his own.
His horse threw him off on a river and he
drowned it covered in armor, and his son wanted to
preserve his body, so he put him in a barrel
(37:44):
of vinegar, thinking that would work. It didn't. But then
we also had, you know, a recent classic where we
had a famous admiral I think it was a barrel
of brandy they put him in, Yeah, because they were
trying to I mean, yeah, trying to preserve the body.
You're These journeys took a very long time, so I
was curious because I don't remember which part of the
journey Magellan died, Like I think they were in the
(38:06):
Pacific Ocean.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
By that point. Yes, yeah, you're correct. They were over
in the Philippines and they spent several weeks there attempting
to convert local populations to Christianity. Eventually they got caught
up in something we call the Battle of Machtan today,
(38:28):
and Magellan got struck by a spear and then surrounded
and murdered with other weapons. This is not the way
he wanted to go out, but his journey did did
become the first solid proof that the Earth is a sphere,
and and he was just proving something that people have
(38:54):
known since before the time of Jesus Christ. That's the thing.
So don't fall for the Columbus grift whatever.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
You proving that. Showing up at some place and telling
a bunch of people that what they believe is wrong
and you need to follow that is not a popular
thing to do. Improve that.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
Yes they did, Yeah, that was the the The actions
of Bacton were perhaps one of the more violent predecessors
to fact checking.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Maybe I'll take that, Yeah, no, I'll take the drummerriff. Okay, no, no,
you're right, you're right. So Max, I cannot thank you
again enough for hopping on and and co hosting this story,
which is obviously pretty important to both of us because
we were misled in our formative years, as was our
(39:52):
brother in podcasting arms, mister Noel Brown.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Yeah. I know, it's been an absolute pleasure of being
on here. It's not that hard to track me down
and get me on air, you know, it's kind of around.
But I didn't want to leave us with one quote
from my favorite band of all time, Modest Mouse, and
the line is, yeah, the universe is shaped exactly like
the Earth. We go straight, long enough, we'll run into
an ice wall that'll stop us. Special thanks also to
(40:17):
our composer and my real actual facts brother, Alex Williams.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah you have you have me in the first half
on that Modest Spouse riff. I'm not gonna lie. That's
one of my favorite songs of their.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
It's an amazing song. This is my senior quote.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
It's a beautiful, beautiful song. And this that you're hearing
is a beautiful song made by as you said, Alex Williams.
We also want to give a big thank you to
Jonathan Strickland aka the Quist, aj Bahamas, Jacobs, Doctor Rachel
Big Spinach, Lance and then our peer show Ridiculous Crime.
(40:52):
If you like us, you'll love them Max. Who else
do we want to think? It could be a random person?
Do you want it ain't modest? Mouse?
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Let's thank my friend Rob Okay, it's gonna shut him out.
Oh my friend Eric who just had his first child
last week. Congratulations Eric, because gives them sleep. Hot Just kidding,
You're not gonna get any sleep, you fool.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
And, as my pal Lule always likes to say, we'll
see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. And now let's hear it for
our super producer, none other than the man himself, Max
flat Earth Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I'm here and I'm like Kyrie Irving, I don't believe
the Earth is round. Just kidding, No, the Earth is round.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Okay, okay, you know that's an on air one eighty
from all the memes you've been sending me low these
many years. Our our colleague, my brother in podcast arms,
mister Noel Brown is on Adventures, will be returning very soon.
They call me Ben Bollen in various parts of the world,
(01:07):
and on this show in particular. Now we're going to
do something a little bit different today, folks, as Noel
is on his various adventures and quest that we can't
wait to hear about very soon. I have made a
bit of a covenant off air, and I've asked you
(01:27):
Max Williams, to serve some double duty as as a
guest co host here. So can I get you to
confirm on air that you're okay with that?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah, Frank, I was kind of tempted to tell you
no and make you just do the episode solo. But
they'll just chime in periodically, Yeah, just like once every
like fifteen to twenty minutes with just like random facts,
just seeing how awkward that be. But you know, I
actually have to listen to the episode a couple times
through the edit, and I don't know if I would
be able to get through all that cringe.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Well, I am going to choose to appreciate that. And
I did cut my teeth, as you know, over the
decade plus now, I've cut my teeth doing some solo podcasting,
respect where it's due. I learned a lot of that
(02:20):
from our own nemesis, Jonathan Strickland aka the Twister. R
pal Dylan Fagan and I had had a show that
I soloed for a while called Strange News Daily. But
I couldn't be more pleased to have you riding with
us in the in the front seat here of this
(02:41):
episode's car. The car of this episode.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
It's yeah, it's got a driving around the world.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
The car. We're just driving around the world. So thank
you again, Max. This is this is going to be
a weird and interesting for us and I know that
it calls out to both of us specifically. This is
the story of how humans figured out Earth was round Earth.
(03:18):
Right as planets go, it's pretty great. I would say
three out of five.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, three and a half. I mean, it doesn't boil
us instantly, but it's no Riza.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
There we go right and Max, you and Noel and
myself and everybody that we have ever met, and everybody
that you've ever met, fellow ridiculous historians, was born here
on Earth. Human civilization, probably allegedly, so far as we know,
human civilization has spent thousands upon thousands of years learning
(03:53):
about this planet and all the things on or around it.
Surprisingly enough, here in twenty twenty six, there's still so
much more to learn along the way. We got a
few things wrong.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, a couple of things wrong. And I mean, I
guess the topic of today's episode is kind of one
of these myths that I know I grew up with
at least, and I'm assuming you group as well. I
don't know if it's gotten out of it, but I
remember being in like first second grade that whenever what
is it October November, that day you're reading the books
you're learning about how this guy's Italian who was sailing
(04:30):
for Spain, went across the Atlantic Ocean, this real heroic
journey and discovered that not only was there another giant
land mass there, but that the Earth was round like
all of these things. And then later to find out
that while this guy did exist and he did sail
(04:53):
across the Atlantic Ocean to this continent, all the contexts
around this was lies. And also this guy sucks.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah. Yeah, The beginning of the old rhyme goes in
fourteen hundred and ninety two Columbus sailed the Ocean blue.
A lot of us in the audience are going to
be familiar with this funny tall tale, Like you said, Max,
the idea that most of human civilization thought the Earth
was flat all the way up to the fourteen hundreds
(05:23):
when a real drip, a real pill named Crystal Baal
Cologne sailed the ocean and proved, hey, you don't actually
fall off the edge. It's a great story. It turns
out it is absolute fiction. And in today's episode we
are going to figure out when people actually learned the
(05:45):
Earth is round? And Max, when you and I are
are doing our bit as research associates for our various episodes.
You and I in particular like to include little Easter
eggs right for Noel and myself, little things in the
(06:05):
notes that are not going to make it on the air,
or sometimes do. And just want you to know. The
top heading here is for us. I wasn't going to
say it on air, but I think we should. And
I want to thank you in advance for the beep
that you're about to give yourself. Can you give us
(06:27):
the title?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Oh yeah, life used to be terrifying and no one
knew what was going on. Beep beep.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
That's about the size of it, right exactly?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I mean, yeah, I mean, depending on your origin story
or origin belief, it's not going to sit here or
stand here in my case and tell you what to believe.
One thing that can be agreed upon. Humans have been
around for a while, and for the vast majority of
time that humans have been around, survival has not been
(07:02):
the easiest thing. So if you're gonna sit around trying
to debate, I wonder if this world is round, you're
gonna probably just starve or get a cut and die
or be eaten by something. You're really kind of more
focused on this whole you know, surviving thing.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, yeah, it's easy to take the shape of the
earth for granted today, or the shape of planets in general.
And it's also for most of human history, for most
people who lived and died here. It was a very academic,
non important point. It's not the shape of the earth
(07:42):
is not something you can easily see with your own eyes,
because humans are in general very small in comparison to
the scale of the Earth. And you know, this has
happened to all of us in the audience tonight. You
have maybe traveled to a very flat part of the world,
like the endless plays of Iowa, or the Upper Midwest
(08:04):
here in the United States, or maybe the right kind
of desert environment. Then you get out and you look
around and it really does look flat. It looks like
it's just flat. It goes on forever. As a result,
you know, we cannot blame ancient peoples and communities for
looking around and shrugging and saying, uh, yeah, I guess
(08:25):
that's the uh, that's the edge of the place. And
this reminds us of one of our absolute favorite video
game series or franchises, folks. Max and I are huge
fans of a game called Civilization so much so that
(08:47):
we will text each other about it. We will, we will.
Actually we've actually held off recordings sometimes just to talk
about updates on Civilization.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yeah, it's a common go to for when we're QA
and stuff, so like listening through, you know, our ears
are occupied and I'm like, I'll start a play through
with Sweden before we really dive into this. Have you
converted to SIV seven yet or are you still on
SIV six?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
I'm I'm I'm still one controversial right now. I'm still
on SI six bro because it's uh, I'll even go
back to CIV five, but I'm still on Civilization six because,
like you said, it becomes a kind of comforting activity.
The way the game is designed is brilliant and it's psychological. Uh,
(09:41):
it's psychological manipulation to keep you just just rewarding you
a little bit every turn and keeping your attention.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
But not hit stuff down.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah. Yeah, And there's something comforting and pleasing and the
repetition and the progress. It's it's similar to like a
fidget spinner almost, or for some people in the audience,
it's similar to uh, playing with the rosary. You know,
it continues, it continues ed, what about you, Max, What's
(10:13):
first off, what's the controversy between Civilization seven versus six?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Well, first and foremost, said Rosary, which after playing a
Hollow Night Silk Song, I cannot think of any differently
now because that's the currency in that game, and it
is the most brutal economy in any of the game ever.
That game is so hard, but it's beautiful. But I
have I have tried to go over SIB seven. The
controversy is, at least in my opinion, SIB seven is
(10:40):
not very good and SEB six is tremendous, And to
your point, also SIF five is also TREMENDOUSIF five is
way harder than SIB six in my opinion, though SIVE six,
I think is actually probably in my opinion, is pretty easy.
I tried a few months ago to go in seven,
but I just it just I think is just so
(11:00):
good that it's hard to get off of it. But hopefully,
I mean, I remember when SIM six first came out,
it took me like four or five years to get
off of SIV five to this comfort. I was talking
to my dash about this and it's like, you know, he,
you know, eighties nineties video games. He was very in
that earlier wave like first like games coming Home and
eventually we'll talk about Around at Earth by the way.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, yeah, we're getting to it.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
But he I talked to him, and it's like, the
funny thing about sim is like it's the most entertaining
game of all time, and it's also like doing your taxes.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
That's a perfect comparison, Max, because there is it's very procedural, right,
and there are formulas to learn, there are stats to
play with in balance. Here's why we're mentioning civilization the game.
We're mentioning it because civilization the phenomena gets a pretty
(11:51):
good depiction in Civilization the Game, regardless of which iteration
of civilization you play, it do this astonishing job of
depicting the experience of early ancient peoples. When you begin
the game, you've got your little tribe. You're probably placed
randomly on a world map, and at the beginning you
(12:14):
can only see a little bit of the land around you.
The rest of the world. The rest of the map
is shrouded in darkness. It only becomes visible as you
explore your planet and advance through the game.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Right, and very similar to how early people were. You
don't know what's around you, you don't know what dangers
around you, and survival is of all paramount importance. But
you know, unlike the game, you don't know you're about
to get sailing in five turns or three turns you'll
get a monument, or you're about to grow that tile
(12:49):
where you'll get a luxury resource. You're just trying to survive,
so you're not really busy try and figure out stuff
like as you wrote here, the shape of the planet,
existence on far away consonants.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, yeah, we've got at this point in history, we've
got other more practical concerns, as you said, chief of
which is not dying and staying alive, hopefully long enough
to reproduce. So these big questions of abstract concepts, like
the shape of the planet you live on, they're going
to be largely informed by religious beliefs and spiritual thoughts
(13:25):
instead of scientific inquiry. We got to tell you, we
always like to hit this point whenever we talk about
the ancient past. The people who were alive at this time,
they're not knuckleheads. They just had understandably different priorities. Civilization
(13:48):
took a while to grow. It took a while for
humans to figure out agriculture, which led to more stationary lifestyles,
and during that period, the majority of people lived and
died roughly in the same area they were born in,
So you would only have migration over long distances due
(14:09):
to social upheaval or disease or famine or war. So like,
even nomadic communities would typically have a set range of travel,
and they move back and forth from one place to
the next cyclically as the season's changed.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Right, Which makes sense because if you're going to the
same areas, you at least know what's there. You go
somewhere new, you don't know what's there, and discovering a
new place with a new biome is like basically going
to a new planet. Oh and to a point you
made a second ago about how you know people of
the past were not knuckleheads. I like to think about.
(14:48):
I like to do a thought exercise about how kind
of basically screwed I would be if you've removed away
Like some absumptions that we have in life, like I
don't know how to electrically wire something, but I can
do things with electricity, Like at least I can do
editing but if you took away electricity, I wouldn't be
able to fix it. We have this science, we have
this built up knowledge and accumulation over time. Where these
(15:11):
people were laying down the foundations of that stuff. They
don't have those foundations. So I think that's an important thing.
And to continue on that point, you know, critical thought,
construction of theory, all this stuff. Those are privileges. And
obviously you have some stuff like the early Phoenicians with
writing and stuff, but where your basic needs are not met,
it's hard to focus on other things because you have
(15:33):
to go meet these basic needs.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Yeah, well said man. You have to advance past a
certain threshold of sustainability. You have to be able to
support some contingent to people in your community who are
not constantly just trying to survive, the people who for
some reason have enough of a support structure to sit
(15:55):
down and think about stuff. And when people first reach
that threshold in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin
America Europe, there also was Okay, we eventually get the thinkers,
but we don't get a lot in the way of
fact checking. That becomes a thing way way later, and
humans are still you know, not super great at it.
(16:16):
So if you are Max Williams in the ancient past,
your understanding of the world is probably going to be
based on the statements of the local religious authority. They're
going to pitch you a story and you probably just
accept it, not because you know you are thick, as
the Brits would say or anything like that, but because
(16:38):
there aren't alternative explanations to consider. And in fact, if
you have an alternative explanation, or if you encounter one,
it's going to be treated as blasphemy. People often died
in cartoonishly gruesome ways for pitching other narratives.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, check out our two part series of the Past
where we talk about his who were horrifically punished despite
being right. It is not the cheeriest series we did,
especially the second part which is just about Alan Turing,
which is just like, this guy was right about so
many things and history did him dirty. But yeah, and
(17:16):
to that point, it's just like, you know, I might
have it even thought, but you know, I don't have
theories and stuff. I don't have a way to prove
this wrong. And also it's just the fear of it all.
Like I know, we've done a past episode on the
origins of ostracize. Yes, pots smashing him and stuff like that. Yeah,
especially you see like one guy bring up maybe maybe
the Earth is round and he gets thrown out of
(17:37):
town and it gets eaten by a lion as soon
as it gets outside. I'm not going to bring that up.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Let's also consider one of my favorite parables in this genre,
which we mentioned in that previous episode. We can never
forget that the human being is a specific type of primy.
It's the kind of prime me that will kill its
own people for politely suggesting that you wash your hands
(18:07):
before surgery. Shout out to Samulweiss. He figured out a
way to save millions of lives. They beat the crap
out of them and threw them in an asylum.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's not great, but yeah, thankfully though,
with time and evolution, this new group of people that
I think we both squarely belong in started to emerge
called nerds, and nerds like things we are kind of
(18:37):
it's kind of an obsession over things. And obviously there's
many types of nerds, but growing about people who really
liked things like geography, physics, math, space, and like, you
know what. They started doing was recording and keeping track
of this stuff, often getting horribly punished for proving things
that were right but right. If you want to hear
(19:01):
us talk more about that, check out some past episodes.
We're gonna just kind of breeze past that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Again, we just to give you the long and short
of it, folks. We cannot stress this enough. Society was
still actively killing a lot of these nerds or treating
them as absolute whack jobs. Yet a win is a win.
That's a bit of a quick context on science, religion,
the grim reality of human life. Now we get to
(19:28):
the myth. All right, we told you the pitch. The
pitch is this. The entirety of human civilization assumed the
world was flat all the way up until fourteen ninety two.
Crystal bol Cologne aka Christopher Columbus, aka a bunch of
different names that he gave himself. He sailed across the Atlantic,
he discovered the quote unquote New World, and the story,
(19:52):
the myth really paints him as a hero, and they say,
look at this, he's a ballsy guy. He convinces King
Ferd and Isabella, his Spanish patrons, to back him on
this wild, dangerous gamble and he stands up in front
of court and he says, Earth is round, and if
you give me the ships I need, I will sail
(20:13):
west and eventually I will land in Asia. Dude, this
story was so popular, he got printed textbooks, he got
taught in otherwise credible schools and halls of education. And
as you pointed out so beautifully at the top of
this episode, macks. A lot of us in the audience
(20:34):
heard this story as kids. It just happens to be
complete bunk. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
No, the story of Christopher Columbus is absolutely ridiculous. Is
just full of so much lies and propaganda and stuff.
I remember actually one time pointing out to somebody who
was trying to defend Christopher Columbus to me. They were saying, like,
he's like, oh, he's one of the greatest Americans ever.
I'm like, he literally died undreds of years before America
(21:01):
was a thank buddy. You got to realize that, Like,
I get it, I get it. I'm not going to
sit here and tell people what believe and whatnot. But
that is actually just facts right there. But yeah, I mean,
as you put it, Chrissy Boy, ain't no hero. Yeah,
never was. And this whole Earth being round, which this
(21:21):
is the problem I have with the story completely. You
tell me, this guy went in front of the King
and Queen of Spain, a superpower of the time, and
told them that they're idiots and thinking the world is flat,
and I'm gonna sell around them. And they're like, oh,
you know what, Sure, here's a couple of ships, go
do it. No, no one is that bad at investing. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, this was a shark tank moment, and the story
is unbelievable if only for that specific aspect. And there's
a historian who often gets quoted remarking about this guy
named Jeffrey Burton Russell, who points out, quote educated person
in the history of Western civilization from the third century
(22:05):
BC onward believed that the Earth was flat end quote no.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Education people living today.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yeah. Yeah, everybody's catching strays on this one. So, if anything,
Chris had funding problems because he just underestimated the size
of the planet by a cartoonish amount. He thought Earth
was way smaller than it actually is. That was the
complication in his sharp tank moment. He spent years arguing
(22:34):
with King Ferdinand's people essentially about scheduling, about how long
it would take him to travel across the sea to China.
And also, as we can tell, he had no idea
that there were two gigantic continents between Europe and Asia
if you sail west.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Right, because it's like, you know, here's the thing, as
Magellan would later find, getting even just past this big
continent is ridiculous, Like getting across the Atlantic Ocean is
a lot. Going all the way down to Chile and
around is lot, and then you have the hardest task
of it all called the Pacific Ocean, which is massive.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Massive.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
So yeah, I mean, I don't know the answer to this,
but just asking you do you do you know how
big he thought it was, Like how long it took
he thought it would take just to go from Spain
to India.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
We know he underestimated the size of the planet on
the order of like twenty five percent. He thought it
was twenty five percent the side of its actual size.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Okay, so it's kind of like sailing across a big sea,
he thought.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yes, yeah, And that's not necessarily his fault, because you know,
they have very limited information available. But we are perhaps
being a little bit too credulous when we accept this
myth entirely. So how did this myth get started in
the first place? This is cool. It did not start
(24:08):
in Columbus's time, nowhere near it. And when we think
about that, that makes sense because his contemporaries, world leaders
and scholars of the day when he was sailing, they
already knew Earth was round, So it would not make
sense for them to care about this story. It would
be such a non issue. It would be as if
(24:28):
we got together and wrote a breaking news report that
Elon Musk has proved people breathe air. Everybody would read
the headline and go, why are Yeah, we know, like
we know.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
So Weirdly enough, the myth of Columbus in the round
world didn't come until centuries after the fact, the actual
year being eighteen twenty eight, with a fiction writer. Let's
make sure to know that a fiction writer by of Washington, Irving,
who gained a interest and obsession with this guy with
(25:08):
this guy cologne, and so a little more on Irving.
He's a pretty famous writer. He published the book Rit
Van Winkle, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I'm guessing you've
heard of those ben along with other stuff. And you
know this wasn't just some bloke. This guy was out
here hobnobbing and hanging out with the rich and famous.
(25:28):
He was well known and people, you know, when this
guy said stuff, they were like, Okay, let's listen to
this guy, including you know, his friends in you know,
the politics.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Yeah, exactly. So we see this happen in our modern
age of celebrity worship. You have probably seen those weird
articles where someone will say, what does jaw Rule think
about this geopolitical event?
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Or what is your noct thinks about this?
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Where is Jah? Yeah? Irving Washington. Irving is sort of
like that guy for these people. At the time. He
is friends with some of, as you said, the most
high flutant folks in the government. One of these guys
is a dude named Alexander Hill Everett. He is the
US Minister to Spain at this point in history, being
(26:22):
called the minister to a specific country, it's pretty much
what you would call an ambassador today. So Alex hits
up his buddy Irving and says, hey, man, come kick
it with me in Madrid. It's dope af or something
to that effect. Washington. Irving takes alex up on the offer,
so he travels to Madrid, which takes a very long
time back. Then he falls in love with this huge
(26:46):
archive of documents all about Christopher Columbus. He's feeling it, man,
and if for fellow writers in the crowd, you know
what we're talking about. Irving is inspired. He knows enough
to take the inspiration whenever it comes. So he tells himself,
I'm going to write a biography of Columbus. It's going
to be the definitive biography, and I'm gonna use all
(27:08):
this stuff I'm learning about him now. And it does
make sense, Max, because despite being just a terrible person,
Christopher Columbus lives this cinematic, fascinating life. In the course
of our research for this, by the way, we found
that even after he died, he still traveled way more
(27:28):
than most Europeans.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Right, So you know, I think we should probably take
this one go back and forth just to kind of
illustrate how ridiculous of a tour his body took. So
he initially dies fifteen oh six and he's buried in Valedoilid, Spain.
I totally pronounced that correct. But then three years later
his remains get taken and put into his family mausolem
(27:54):
or mausoleum actually named after the ruler Mausulus. Yes, it's
got to be buried in maslm over in Sevea.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
And then in fifteen forty two his remains get transferred
to Santo Domingo, Hispaniola, which is now in the Dominican Republic.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
And then again a big time jump about two hundred
and fifty two hundred and fifty three years, if we
want to be specific, his bones are moved to Havana, Cuba,
and then even more later, one hundred years later, they're
shipped back across the Atlantic back to Servella. Am I
saying that one right, Sevilla Sevilla, Sevilla in eighteen ninety six,
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Yeah, So what we're saying is this guy's whole existence,
sith lord of colonialism that he may be, his whole
existence makes for a real page turner. So it also
makes sense that Irving wants to write about it. But
there's an issue that you had you had just emphasized there,
Bax a little bit earlier. Our buddy Irving is an
(28:56):
excellent writer. He's an excellent author. We're not going to
take that away from him, but he's an excellent fiction writer.
He's an excellent fiction author. So even though Chris's life
is full of strange, fascinating events, Irving can't help but
judge it up with all sorts of embellishment and tall tales.
He doesn't want the facts to get in the way
(29:17):
of a good story, like our buddy Aaron Tracy said
talking about Roald Dahl. So Irving adds a little dramatic tension,
and he claims that Chris has fought the system, that
Christopher Columbus is the first real guy to claim Earth
is round, that he bucked this system of the day,
that he beefed with the church and the geographers alike,
(29:39):
that he talked trash to the royal court, tossed a
middle finger to the haters, and single handedly revolutionized scientific thought.
This is all malarchy.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Oh yeah, all made up. But when your fam it's
like Irving, and to a point earlier in this episode,
when you don't really have people who can sit up,
stand up and just say no, you're wrong, or like,
you know, obviously there's a lot more research at this
point in time, but you know, this guy's sat here,
he's famous, He's done all this research. He says, it's true,
who's gonna call him out? He is, as you wrote
(30:19):
here in your wonderful research brief. By the way, shout
out to Ben here for this research. He is phone
book famous, meaning he could write the most boring yellow
pages or white pages even thing, and it'll be a
runaway hit because he's just that famous. And so when
he publishes this book, A History of the Life and
(30:41):
Voyages of Christopher Columbus, massive hit released in four volumes,
wild praise, breathless reviews, McGraw Hills are already putting in their textbooks.
I'm making that last part up, but it might be true.
Prove me wrong.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
In other ways, it's just it's a hit. Everyone wants it,
and everyone believes it.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yeah, everybody who can read is talking about it, and
virtually everyone who snags a copy of this considers it
to be gospel, God's honest truth. Christopher Columbus told in
detail with one hundred percent accuracy. Other authors fall for
this as well. They pick up on the thread. They
cite Washington Irving extensively, especially other famous authors like the
(31:27):
French guy Antoine Jean le Troum. This BS becomes accepted
as historical fact and That is why even today you
will still hear some people falling for the whole thing. Now,
we got to give credit where it's due. Nice one, Irving.
We don't know why you did it, but you pulled
(31:48):
it off.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Man, Thanks, Bud, You're so great, you really you know, yeah,
help that lout. But I mean, I guess you know,
are we any better than Irving if we don't tell
the truth? I mean, obviously yes we are, but not
by large enough margin that I think we should probably
dive into it. So again, you know, as we've mentioned
(32:13):
multiple times in this episode the show everything, ancient people
were just as smart as us. And you know there was,
you know, some very smart people, some very dumb people.
There's some good people, bad people, blah blah blah. They
just didn't have the same access that we have now.
They didn't have this foundation of knowledge that we had.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Right. Yeah, they had their own pantheon of pet peeves,
just like everybody does today. They had their own goals,
they had daily annoyances, fart jokes. Then is now we're
still peak comedy. Not everybody was exceptional, But I love
the point you're making, Max. The vast majority of people
are far from stupid. They just don't have They don't
(32:58):
have things like in psych with pedos right. They don't
have communication channels that allow them to see alternative viewpoints,
or the opportunity podcasts right for better or worse. I
love the idea of a medieval podcast or late antiquity podcasts.
They don't have these opportunities. But humans have always been
(33:20):
pretty good at observing the world around them. We know
as far back as the fifth century BCE they're written
explorations or speculations about Earth as a sphere that comes
from various Greek philosophers. Then you go a little further
to three hundred BCE because, as you and I were
(33:41):
talking about off air, BCE counts down.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, we see something so anxiety inducing because you're just like,
every year you're going down in number, and you're like,
what are we counting down to? How bad joke draw
myself for that one?
Speaker 1 (33:57):
No, that's great though, you know, let's keep the bad
joke going because I've always thought it had to be
weird for Jesus Christ, you know what I mean, He's
growing up and it's counting down, and he asked, he
asked God, why the system is counting down, and God
(34:18):
is like, let's put a pen in that.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
You'll know soon enough.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Exactly right. There are other jokes we could do here,
but we're gonna keep it pg. Thirteen. So all right,
it's three hundred BCE circa thereabouts, and there's a Greek
ethnographer named Megasthenes and Megas Theenes shouts out Brahman nerds
in India, and he says, these guys have already figured
(34:45):
out Earth was a sphere, although to be fair, they
did also argue that Earth is not just a sphere
but the center of the universe. This is a classic
common human mistake that was a lot.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
More work to, right. I mean, that's the one you
can just you can't really. I mean, the well known
fact is you can go by the ocean and get
on something high, you can see that the Earth is round,
it starts rounding.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
You can't go look at the stars and figure out
that we're rotating around that big bright thing that you
shouldn't stare at.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah, because the perspective is so strange. It will take
it will take a lot of other very clever people
to even prove the heliocentric model of the planets, and
then when they prove the heliocentric model for a time,
they argue that the Sun is the center of the universe.
So you know, it's a work in progress, it's a
(35:41):
learning thing. Around the same time, in this period in
BCE BCE history, Hellenistic astronomers proved the spherical shape of
Earth as a concrete fact through math. They also attempted
the first known calculations of Earth's circumference. This knowledge later
(36:03):
migrates slowly throughout Triumphant Disaster to the Romans. Then it
spreads again slowly throughout what is sometimes called the Old World,
through late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and then our
returning guests that you mentioned just a few minutes ago.
Ferdinand Magellan and company finally demonstrate the concept that the
(36:26):
Earth is round. They experientially prove it, beginning in fifteen
nineteen by literally circumnavigating the globe, sailing around the planet
in an amazing, preposterous, disastrous expedition that was, to your
earlier point, literally more dangerous than space travel is today.
(36:50):
And Magellan didn't end his story the way he would
have preferred.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Didn't he die on that journey.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I can't remember, yeah, yeah, non consensual death as well.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Did he get put in a in a barrel of
pickles like Frederick Barbarossa or did they respect his body?
Speaker 1 (37:11):
To our knowledge, he did not end up literally pickled
in a barrel. But there's a reason you're bringing this up, Max.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Oh yeah, well see that kind of just seemed to
be a thing, a thing people did. So Frederick Barbarossa,
when he was doing a crusade, how he died. We
actually have an episode of an episode about this. He
got annoyed at his army, he rode off on his own.
His horse threw him off on a river and he
drowned it covered in armor, and his son wanted to
preserve his body, so he put him in a barrel
(37:44):
of vinegar, thinking that would work. It didn't. But then
we also had, you know, a recent classic where we
had a famous admiral I think it was a barrel
of brandy they put him in, Yeah, because they were
trying to I mean, yeah, trying to preserve the body.
You're These journeys took a very long time, so I
was curious because I don't remember which part of the
journey Magellan died, Like I think they were in the
(38:06):
Pacific Ocean.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
By that point. Yes, yeah, you're correct. They were over
in the Philippines and they spent several weeks there attempting
to convert local populations to Christianity. Eventually they got caught
up in something we call the Battle of Machtan today,
(38:28):
and Magellan got struck by a spear and then surrounded
and murdered with other weapons. This is not the way
he wanted to go out, but his journey did did
become the first solid proof that the Earth is a sphere,
and and he was just proving something that people have
(38:54):
known since before the time of Jesus Christ. That's the thing.
So don't fall for the Columbus grift whatever.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
You proving that. Showing up at some place and telling
a bunch of people that what they believe is wrong
and you need to follow that is not a popular
thing to do. Improve that.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
Yes they did, Yeah, that was the the The actions
of Bacton were perhaps one of the more violent predecessors
to fact checking.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Maybe I'll take that, Yeah, no, I'll take the drummerriff. Okay, no, no,
you're right, you're right. So Max, I cannot thank you
again enough for hopping on and and co hosting this story,
which is obviously pretty important to both of us because
we were misled in our formative years, as was our
(39:52):
brother in podcasting arms, mister Noel Brown.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Yeah. I know, it's been an absolute pleasure of being
on here. It's not that hard to track me down
and get me on air, you know, it's kind of around.
But I didn't want to leave us with one quote
from my favorite band of all time, Modest Mouse, and
the line is, yeah, the universe is shaped exactly like
the Earth. We go straight, long enough, we'll run into
an ice wall that'll stop us. Special thanks also to
(40:17):
our composer and my real actual facts brother, Alex Williams.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah you have you have me in the first half
on that Modest Spouse riff. I'm not gonna lie. That's
one of my favorite songs of their.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
It's an amazing song. This is my senior quote.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
It's a beautiful, beautiful song. And this that you're hearing
is a beautiful song made by as you said, Alex Williams.
We also want to give a big thank you to
Jonathan Strickland aka the Quist, aj Bahamas, Jacobs, Doctor Rachel
Big Spinach, Lance and then our peer show Ridiculous Crime.
(40:52):
If you like us, you'll love them Max. Who else
do we want to think? It could be a random person?
Do you want it ain't modest? Mouse?
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Let's thank my friend Rob Okay, it's gonna shut him out.
Oh my friend Eric who just had his first child
last week. Congratulations Eric, because gives them sleep. Hot Just kidding,
You're not gonna get any sleep, you fool.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
And, as my pal Lule always likes to say, we'll
see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
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Noel Brown
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