On August 3 1492 He sailed from Palos Spain, and arrived on Oct 12, 1492 in the Bahamas. That means it took him 70 days. At least he didn't sail off the Earth! Back then it was believed that the Earth was flat, everyone knew you couldn't sail around the world, you would fall off. Christopher Columbus believed the world was round. He had a reason to believe it too. He had read in the Bible where God said, He sat on the sphere, (circle) of the earth. Columbus knew the Earth was round because God has said it was a sphere, a sphere is round like a circle. I thought you might like to know that. You can read about it yourself in the book of Isaiah chapter 40 verse 21 he wrote this in his journal.
Magellan's expedition was the first to circle the world, and he himself died along the way. It was known that the Earth was round. You can figure it out from star patterns. The ancient Greeks figured it out. Columbus was the one who made the Americas known to the Europeans, in 1492. The world was known to be round long before he was born. Magellan's expedition actually accomplished the feat in the early 1500s. About 1520.
There is a false belief among people that Christopher Columbus set out on his voyages and somewhere along the way he discovered that the world was round. This is not quite true, actually. Columbus knew that the world was round much before he sailed forth. People knew about the world being round much before Columbus set forth on his voyages to search out the new world.
Research and history shows that Christopher Columbus, who was born to a wool weaver in Genoa, Italy, knew that the world was round from the time he was in school. Though Columbus was not able to go to school too often, he was able to read and write the language that was most in use them, Latin, and also Spanish, during the course of his voyages.
People also believe that Columbus tried to prove to all around that the world was actually round, and not flat, during the course of his travels. This was something he knew and wanted to be proved to the rest of the world. He made four voyages in all. The first voyage was with three ships - Pinta, Santa Maria, and Nina.
