# Columbus in 1492 **URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbus-in-1492/946837 **Category:** Factual Questions **Created:** [July 19, 2021, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbus-in-1492/946837 "2021-07-19T16:33:54Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 13
### Author: ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern) #### Post date: [July 20, 2021, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbus-in-1492/946837/13 "2021-07-20T10:24:22Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > One more charitable read of Columbus is that he relied on a more accurate and recent\* Arabic measurement\*\* of the Earth’s circumference than Eratosthenes No, Columbus relied on the calculations and map of the Italian mathematician and astronomer Toscanelli (1397 – 1482). [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8e/Atlantic_Ocean%2C_Toscanelli%2C_1474.jpg/320px-Atlantic_Ocean%2C_Toscanelli%2C_1474.jpg) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8e/Atlantic_Ocean%2C_Toscanelli%2C_1474.jpg/320px-Atlantic_Ocean%2C_Toscanelli%2C_1474.jpg) It’s amazing how the same questions and misconceptions get rehashed over and over again on the board. See [this recent thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-christopher-columbus-acting-on-any-tips-from-prior-travellers/939123) for a long discussion about Columbus. There also seems to be the same outdated misconception about science and technology in medieval times. Wikis on [European science in the Middle Ages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_science_in_the_Middle_Ages) > Western Europe would see a period of scientific decline during the Early Middle Ages. However, by the time of the High Middle Ages, the region had rallied and was on its way to once more taking the lead in scientific discovery. Scholarship and scientific discoveries of the Late Middle Ages laid the groundwork for the Scientific Revolution of the Early Modern Period. [Medieval technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology) > After the Renaissance of the 12th century, medieval Europe saw a radical change in the rate of new inventions, innovations in the ways of managing traditional means of production, and economic growth.[2] The period saw major technological advances, including the adoption of gunpowder, the invention of vertical windmills, spectacles, mechanical clocks, and greatly improved water mills, building techniques (Gothic architecture, medieval castles), and agriculture in general (three-field crop rotation). --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbus-in-1492/946837)._