historical furphy
Hi All
Columbus was poo-pooed by the learned because his estimate for the Globe's circumference was too small by thousands of miles, due to a confusion over the length of a "mile". Everyone with any learning knew that Asia lay on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, but it was far too far away to reach without a way station. Columbus, I think, got his inspiration from Plato's talk of an "opposite continent" in the middle of the Atlantic, but fudged his figures to sell it to the skeptics.
Forget all the crap about Flat Earths and the like - Columbus got lucky.
Adam