[relix]

As everyone's "hate-boner" will be personal, to me a part that stands out is that Columbus seemed to be a conspiracy theorist akin to the flat-earther. The reason why his expedition took so long to get funding, is not because he was the only one who thought the earth was round, but it's that he used wrong calculations in order to calculate the size of the earth, and he was under the impression that it was much smaller than it actually is. Now at that time, similar to how everyone knew the earth was round, people had a pretty good idea of the actual size of the earth as well - it was already known in ancient Greece after all.

So when he claimed "I can reach the far east by sailing around the other side of the world in X days, as it's just a distance of Y miles" that was against common knowledge of that time, and everyone knew that a trip like that would take 2Y or 3Y miles, something unfeasible with the technology of that time.

The only reason his ship didn't perish halfway like everyone expected them to, is that there just happened to be a continent halfway that they stumbled upon. Columbus is a prime example of "task failed successfully".

[hef19898]

It seems using the wrong numbers was more of a marketing trick to attract investors. Otherwise, everyone else wouod just have used the known route to the east.