ATLAS

Verified factsOMEGA-3-18-2Sheet 2 of 5 of the dossier Flat Earth

From Rowbotham to the Flat Earth Society, and a myth about the Middle Ages

The documented history of the modern movement, and the nineteenth-century myth that medieval scholars believed in a flat Earth.

A man crawling under the edge of the sky, drawn as a solid hemisphere, to look at what lies beyond.
The Flammarion engraving, first published in Camille Flammarion's L'Atmosphère (1888) in a 16th-century style, often mistaken for a medieval image. AnonymousUnknown author · public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Summary

The modern belief in a flat Earth has a traceable origin. The English writer Samuel Rowbotham launched it with the 1849 pamphlet Zetetic Astronomy. In 1893 Lady Elizabeth Blount founded the Universal Zetetic Society, and in 1956 Samuel Shenton set up in Dover, England, the International Flat Earth Research Society, better known as the Flat Earth Society, as its direct descendant. Shenton met the space age with scepticism: when satellite images showed a sphere, he remarked that such a photograph could fool the untrained eye. After his death in 1971, Charles K. Johnson, a correspondent from California, took over; under him the society grew to a reported 3,500 members. It was resurrected around a web forum in 2004 and officially relaunched in October 2009.

A second story runs alongside: the claim that medieval people believed in a flat Earth. Historians describe it as a myth. According to Stephen Jay Gould there never was a period of flat Earth darkness among scholars, and Jeffrey Burton Russell dates the flat-Earth error to between 1870 and 1920, blaming popular histories, among them Washington Irving's 1828 Columbus biography, mistaken by many for scholarship. The real dispute of the 1490s concerned the size of the Earth, not its shape.

Verified facts

  1. Verified fact

    The modern pseudoscientific belief in a flat Earth originated with the English writer Samuel Rowbotham and his 1849 pamphlet Zetetic Astronomy.

    • Flat Earth, Wikipedia
      the pseudoscientific belief in a flat Earth originated with the English writer Samuel Rowbotham with the 1849 pamphlet Zetetic Astronomy.
  2. Verified fact

    Lady Elizabeth Blount founded the Universal Zetetic Society in 1893; in 1956 Samuel Shenton set up the Flat Earth Society in Dover, England, as its direct descendant.

    • Flat Earth, Wikipedia
      In 1956, Samuel Shenton set up the International Flat Earth Research Society, better known as the "Flat Earth Society" in Dover, England, as a direct descendant of the Universal Zetetic Society.
  3. Verified fact

    When satellite images showed the Earth as a sphere, Shenton remarked: "It's easy to see how a photograph like that could fool the untrained eye".

    • Flat Earth Society, Wikipedia
      It's easy to see how a photograph like that could fool the untrained eye
  4. Verified fact

    Charles K. Johnson inherited part of Shenton's library after Shenton's death in 1971, and under his leadership the Flat Earth Society grew to a reported 3,500 members.

    • Flat Earth Society, Wikipedia
      Over the next three decades, under his leadership, the Flat Earth Society grew to a reported 3,500 members.
  5. Verified fact

    The society was resurrected around a web discussion forum in 2004 and officially relaunched in October 2009.

    • Flat Earth Society, Wikipedia
      This eventually led to the official relaunch of the society in October 2009
  6. Verified fact

    According to Stephen Jay Gould, there never was a period of "flat Earth darkness" among scholars: Greek knowledge of the Earth's sphericity never faded.

  7. Verified fact

    Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell says the flat-Earth error flourished most between 1870 and 1920, and ascribes the popularization of the myth to histories by John William Draper, Andrew Dickson White and Washington Irving.

  8. Verified fact

    Washington Irving's romanticized 1828 biography of Columbus invented a debate in which ignorant members of a commission objected to a round Earth; in fact, the issue in the 1490s was the size of the Earth, not its shape.