One of the all-time examples of chance intervening in history is Christopher Columbus’s putative discovery of America. Moreover, the legend of this discovery is filled with erroneous information that was traditionally foisted upon unsuspecting elementary school children. One of the most egregious errors was the assertion that Columbus was trying to prove the earth was round and not flat. I had a picture book when I was young that showed sailors tumbling off the edge of a flat earth.
I first came upon the demythologizing of the Columbus legend from reading Isaac Azimov’s anthologized 1962 column “The Shape of Things”. His tale is so well-written, that I want to include it in its entirety. I have augmented it with some more detailed footnotes and illustrations.