I'm thinking of the idea that Columbus was the first person to say that the world was round. (it came up in a stupid anti-smoking PSA I was subjected to as a kid that I posted in "Fluff.") The Greeks proved it wasn't centuries earlier, and while peasants of his day might have believed it was flat, the kind of crew Columbus hung around with all knew it was round. In fact, he got the size of the Earth and would have starved to death if there had not been land in the way.
Where did that come from? Why do these kinds of stories spread?
Edit: There probably shouldn't be a question mark in the title, but oh well.
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