Re: Common Historical Errors

Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
In article <1193328858snz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Andrew Stephenson <ames@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <Xns99D45F3B7FC8Esraarytvenssr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
sraarytvenssr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx "FennelGiraffe" writes:

The discovery of the Americas set off a wave of other voyages. If
Columbus had failed[1], would Magellan have sailed? There were
important explorations earlier in the 15th century, as well, but if
you must pick *one* year as "world-changing", 1492 was quite
significant.

[1]Or if the Americas didn't exist
There are those who argue that Chris Colon simply exploited some
information already in use, largely secretly, by fisherfolk from
Europe who snuck across The Pond to load up on fish and so steal
a march on their rivals. IOW, if it hadn't been he who went, it
could as easily have been another edge-of-the-world-disbeliever,

Keep in mind, Columbus was not (as my elementary-school Social
Studies implied fifty-odd years ago) the only person in Europe
who realized that the Earth wasn't flat. Every educated person
knew it was round. What they were all, including Columbus,
off-base about was the *size* of the Earth. Eratosthenes had
worked it out, a couple of centuries BCE, and got an estimate
that was within a few percent of reality. And everyone said "Oh,
no, the Earth can't POSSIBLY be as big as that!"

In the _Commedia_, early fourteenth century, Dante lays out
precisely how large educated people thought the Earth was back
then. He places what we'd call the zero meridian at Jerusalem.
Plus ninety degrees, at the Pillars of Hercules, aka the Straits
of Gibraltar. Minus ninety degrees, directly opposite the
Pillars, is the Ganges River in India. (At 180 degrees, directly
opposite Jerusalem, is Mount Purgatory, the only land mass in the
southern hemisphere.)

So when Columbus convinced Isabella that he could get to China
and India by sailing west, he was not propounding some astounding
new theory. He was saying that it would be *economically*
feasible to do so. As things were, you could get Far Eastern
goods by trading with the Arabs (who had you over the barrel and
knew it), or by going around the Horn of Africa (and the
Portuguese had that route sewn up).

So he went west and eventually, not he but everyone else figured
out, oops, Eratosthenes was right and there was a whole 'nother
hemisphere out there.


Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx
IIRC his idea of how far the trip would be *was* disputed by learned people of the time.


--
*
Paul Howard
*
Need a Wizard? Call on Harry Dresden not that Potter boy. [Very Big Grin]
*

.

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