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They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
Tbf, we should still be laughing at Columbus. He didn't prove the Earth was round, we knew that already. He died believing he had "discovered" India. That and he was a racist, baby killing, monster that inflicted such barbaric actions towards the Native Americans that even members of his own crew were like "Whoa there. They might be godless savages, but this is really fucked up. What the fuck is wrong with you?"
He wanted to prove that earth is small enough to sail around it and he that he discovered a path to "India" to his death
To his defense, what you describe was pretty much the rule back then before the 1700, for "nobles" I mean.
He was literally arrested and imprisoned in Spain because of the fucked up shit he did in the Americas. Even the aristocrats thought he was fucked up, which is really saying something.
Allegedly, and he was released after two months, which makes it seems like it was more a political
dramamove to remove him (*an Italian) from power on the new discovered lands.I mean they gave him crappy broken boats to get the asshole out of Europe after he offended most of the monarchies. They essentially gave him the same survival rate as Neil Armstrong and figured it might advance their country the same way. But somehow mister pear with a nipple shaped planet came back and with resources so... Tolerated until they once again couldn't.
Columbus was wrong. He thought the diameter of the earth was much smaller that the common estimate at the time which turned out close to the actual value.