Thread: In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue...

I guess they believed it because sometimes people went off on these voyages and were never seen again.

There are also weird things that happen at sea, storms, giant creatures they'd never have seen before, St Elmos fire...

So the sailors that made it back would have been telling these stories about what they'd seen, and probably embellishing some , and these rumours of the edge of the earth and creatures from the pits of Hell would have started.

And then people would start believing that those who didnt come back had been taken by these creatures, or fallen off the edge of the earth.

What do you mean the earth is ROUND?!?!? Sacrilege! Burn him, burn him.

Please pass this onto Cousin Festus and ask him to join me in membership of this worthy club: The Flat Earth Society

Claiming the earth is flat was probably just stories seamen told to ignorant landlubbers. The fact that the earth is round was known already in the ancient Greece.

On those times there were few methods to determine ships position. They could find out the latitude (north-south position from any reference point that been agreed beforehand) observing stars with various devices and comparing it to star maps. Longitude (east-west) was more complicated and there was no fool proof method before decent chronometer was innovated. Determining ships speed was probably how they tried to guess their east/west position. Only way you could even somehow find out the speed was using hand log and/or observing current/wind speeds and directions.
Also marine charts were totally different than today. They were very primitive and inaccurate and used several different projections with various reference points (nowadays equator and Greenwich UK).

Mariners of today have it much more difficult. You can no more lie to your wife of being caught by a sea monster if coming back home gets little late.

Originally Posted by Stubear

I guess they believed it because sometimes people went off on these voyages and were never seen again.

There are also weird things that happen at sea, storms, giant creatures they'd never have seen before, St Elmos fire...

So the sailors that made it back would have been telling these stories about what they'd seen, and probably embellishing some , and these rumours of the edge of the earth and creatures from the pits of Hell would have started.

And then people would start believing that those who didnt come back had been taken by these creatures, or fallen off the edge of the earth.

What he said

Jordan