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What claims are just not backed by historical facts? (kbin.social)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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To me, it's: That ancient people thought the Earth was flat.

We have records from around 430BC where Greek philosophers spoke of the Earth being a sphere. In 240BC the Greek astronomer Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth and was only about 2% out.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It depends which ancient people. That may be what thought in Greece, but what about elsewhere? Also a lot of Greek and Roman knowledge was lost by the dark ages or ever made it to Europe at all.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Knowledge of a spherical earth was never lost amongst serious academics in post-Roman Europe.