Theme Week, Part Sphere

Jeremy’s Sametime Status Proudly Presents:   
Music Fact Check Week!   
Christopher Columbus never said the world was round, so nobody would have laughed at him


So, I guess Jeremy's got the last laugh now.  We're answering all sorts of questions from that song today.  


Today's musical debunking comes to you courtesy of the legendary George and Ira Gershwin.  The song "They All Laughed" was written for the 1937 film "Shall We Dance" featuring the equally legendary Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.   

The song is about a woman's supposedly futile pursuit of a gentleman caller, siting numerous examples from history where the presumed impossible was achieved.  The point being that the skeptical world was proven wrong, Ginger got her Fred, and they lived happily, and laughing, ever after.  Notable subjects of world scorn (in the song at least) include George and Wilbur Wright's airplane, Gerald Ford's Model A, Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin, and Hershey's Chocolate.  

While it's a dubious claim that anybody ever laughed at chocolate, it's probably safe to assume that people were skeptical about inventor's ideas for new products, but not necessarily about the inventions themselves once they had been proven to work.  Case in point, somebody may laugh when somebody claims to make a boat that can be powered by steam, but once they see it in action, the laughing would probably stop.  So, the song's claims that "They all laughed at Fulton and his steamboat" are probably a little misguided at best.  

The very first claim in the song is "They all laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round," and it is entirely nonsensical.  

From ancient Greek times (Around the 6th century B.C.), nobody of any consequence held the belief that the world was flat.  Pythagoras is widely considered to be the first to articulate the Spherical Earth theory around that time, and Aristotle really established some of the earliest proof around the mid 300's B.C..  Almost 2000 years of science later, strangely enough in the year 1492, a German mapmaker by the name of Martin Behaim showed off his invention to the world, known as the Erdapfel.  It was the first spherical map of the world...the first Globe.  So, why have we been led to believe that Columbus's voyage in 1492 was to show Queen Isabella that the world was round, when nobody thought the world was flat?  

American author Washington Irving was pretty popular.  He was the first internationally acclaimed American author, having worldwide publishing hits such as "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle."  Irving decided to write the story of Christopher Columbus (In three volumes, of course....why are there sequels?) in the first great example of American Historical Fiction.  The book series, "A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus," was an international best-seller, spreading the tale of Columbus's trek all over the world...with only a passing familiarity with the truth.  This series of books is entirely where the myth of the spherical world proof of the voyage comes from, not from any historical facts or records of Spain's royal court.  Why?  Because nobody thought the world was anything but round. 

So, when poor Ginger Rogers sings about everyone laughing at Christopher Columbus, don't feel too bad for the guy.