Though it was speculated for some time that the world was round, not everyone believed so until the 3rd century BC, when it was firmly established. Much later, Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastian Elcano circled the globe, proving this theory.
If you mean the President of the United States it is difficult to imagine any of them believing it, as the last people to believe in a flat earth in the West lived about 2000 years before Christ, i.e. long before there were any such presidents.
Paul Kruger, president of the Boer Republic during the Boer War was unshakable in his belief that the Earth was flat. Source at http://www.allenvarney.com/SAFRICA.html
None of them. Even in the time of Columbus most did not believe the Earth was flat.
Recall that if the American continents did not exist, the ocean between the Far East and Europe would be almost 15,000 miles wide! When Columbus spoke of crossing this seemingly uncrossable ocean, most did not believe it possible. But Columbus made a mathematical mistake in determining the width of longitude, giving a figure that suggested at most no more than 10,000 miles wide (somewhat wider than the actual Pacific at its widest length). He believed in his math, but few others did as it was expected that the Earth was a perfect sphere and thus latitude and longitude should be about the same in width.
The idea that most [European] people - even uneducated people - of Columbus' day thought the world was flat is only a legend. For most the world was a sphere of water with three vast 'island' continents: Africa, Asia, and Europe, themselves encircling Jerusalem which was believed to stand near the center of the world (at least of its surface land area). There were also some legends of a land or island exactly on the opposite side of the world from Jerusalem. Otherwise the rest of the world was just a vast ocean.
The story goes that Paul Kruger (1825-1904), President of the Transvaal Republic (South Africa), believed that the earth was flat, because it said so in The Bible.
Paul Kruger, president of the Boer Republic
newtest3
John Guske
Andrew Jackson was the only U.S. President to believe the world was flat.
People believed that the earth was flat
Flat
people who believed the earth is flat, not a sphere like most people believe.
Since the determination of the fact that Earth is spherical as opposed to flat, all scientists (after a short lag period) have accepted that it is so.
Columbus never believed the earth was square, in fact, the myth was that he believed the earth was flat. However, in truth, Columbus did not believe the earth was flat. Ancient Greek mathematicians, Pythagoras and Aristotle, proved the earth was spherical in shape based on the shadow of the earth on the moon and the curvature of the earth when approaching land. Columbus falsely believed he could reach Asia by going west because he underestimated the circumference of the earth, and also believed Europe was wider than it was.
No one believed that the earth was flat in the 1600 it was a well know fact that the world was round. This myth that people used to believe that the world was flat didn't exsist before 1870-1920. The myth probably came to existance because it was way more intriguing that Colombus in a world where everyone thought was flat was the only one who believed it was round.
no the world has always been round. but it was believed that the earth was flat because pioneers never traveled far enough to know then some one was smart enough to realize the earth was round.
There have been all kinds of cosmologies in past civilisations. In ancient times, at the dawn of western civilisation, it was commonly thought that the Earth was a flat surface, covered by a dome, suspended in water. Later, a few centuries BCE, the Greek figured out that the Earth was spherical, and were even able to roughly determine its circumference. They still believed that the Earth was at the center of everything, though, and that the Sun, stars and planets (which, according to the Greek, were simply "wandering stars") revolved around the Earth. It wasn't until the sixteenth century CE that Copernicus published a heliocentric model, challenging the geocentric model upheld by philosophers and religious authorities until that time. From then on, our models of the solar system became increasingly accurate, culminating in our current understanding.
all answers are correct
People once believed the earth was flat. But clearly it is not. People once believed the earth was the center of the universe and that it was held up or sat on the back of a tortoise (or creature of some sort) that also turned out not to be true~
they believed that there 13 heavens and 9 hells. the sun fought darkness every night and rose to save mankind. they believed the earth was flat. submitted by Tanya.