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In this quincentennial year of Columbus's world-changing voyage, the discoverer's epic achievement is being celebrated with floods of printed and filmed material, not to mention exhibitions and a host of events of various sorts. What exactly did Columbus do to inspire such a frenzy of celebration? Besides the obvious answer of discovering unsuspected continents, the response that is often given is that `Columbus showed that the world was round.' That is pure invention, according to Jeffrey Russell, who maintains that the sphericity of the Earth was already well known in Columbus's day, as was its approximate circumference. What Columbus had set out to do was to reach `India' - a term that referred to the entire Far East - to open its riches to European trade, and the souls of its peoples to Christian missionaries. Columbus shared the general European belief that Asia was waiting to be Christianized. The doubts he had to overcome concerned the distance he would have to sail to reach his objective; authorities feared it would be too far for the supplies the ships of the day could carry for the subsistence of the crews, and that the curvature of the Earth would prevent a safe return. Besides, they did not think there could be inhabitants on the other side of the planet, because they would not be descended from Adam. Columbus finally won his point by cooking the figures: he estimated the voyage at 20 per cent of its actual length. As Russell observed, it was the navigator's great good luck that the Americas were in his way.

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Contrary to popular myth, few educated people after about 300 BC doubted that the Earth was a sphere. While a few early Christian thinkers did try to reject the idea, there is nothing in Christian beliefs that dictates a Flat Earth, in fact is says nothing at all on the matter.

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Unlike many others of his time, however, Columbus not only argued for a smaller Earth, he also convinced the Spanish government to provide him the means to put his claims to the test.