Flat Earth Timeline

Timeline.

Driving back into history... Image Source (Mashable.com)

In 2000 BC, the Ancient Chinese believed the earth was flat and square while the heavens were round (Needham, 1986).
In 1270 BC, Homer writes of a Flat Earth while describing The Shield of Achilles in the Iliad.
In 760 BC, Greek Poet Hesiod also writes of a Flat Earth on The Shield of Achilles.
Between 700-500 BC, first map of the world, Imago Mundi, etched into a clay tablet in Babylon, depicting a flat circular world with a city at its center (Finkel, 1995).
In 550 BC, the pre-socratic Greek philosopher, Thales, considered one of the Seven Sages of Greece, who was famous for saying, “Know Thyself”, which was inscribed at the Oracle of Apollo in Delphi, and regarded by Aristotle as the first Greek Philosopher, believed the world was flat and motionless.
In 528 BC, Anaxamenes gives account of the world as coming into being out of preexisting matter, earth was formed out of air by a felting process, the earth is a flat disc, and the sun and moon are flat as well.
In 400 BC, the pre-socratic philosopher Democritus believed in a Flat Earth, according to Aristotle.
Between 500-250 BC, the Matsya Purana states, “The Sun and Planets revolve around Mt. Meru.” Mt. Meru is considered the mountain at the center of the earth, directly beneath Polaris.
In 221BC, China unifies, oldest political documents reference maps and their uses, indicate China long since believed in Flat Earth. (The Discoverers, pg. 111).
Between 78-139 AD, preceding Ptolomy’s work in Alexandria, Chinese Astronomer Chang Heng maps a coordinate system of the earth and the heavens.
Between 345-430 AD, St. Augustine, one of The Church Father’s wrote, “But as to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets to us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours that is on no ground credible.”
In 400 AD Severnianus writes, “the earth is flat and the sun does not pass under it in the night, but travels through the northern parts, ‘as if hidden by a wall’ (Dryer, 1906).
In 1220 AD, the first 20,000 words of the prose edda, Gylfaginning, are written, which says, “And Jafnhárr said: "Of the blood, which ran and welled forth freely out of his wounds, they made the sea, when they had formed and made firm the earth together, and laid the sea in a ring round. about her; and it may well seem a hard thing to most men to cross over it."
In 1574 AD, The astronomer Tyco Brahe, whose assistant was Kepler, demonstrated there is no parallax and proffered a Geocentric cosmology
In 1620 AD, Francis Bacon, the inventor of the Scientific Method wrote, “The eternal motion of revolution appears peculiar to the heavenly bodies, rest to this our globe...”
On 17th January, 1773 AD, Captain James Cook’s vessel, Resolution, enters Antarctic Circle, which is approximately anything south of 66 degrees 33 minutes S. Latitude, Cook got as far as 71 degrees 10 minutes S. Latitude on the 3rd of February, 1774.
Circa 1831 AD, Johanne Wolfgang Von Goethe writes, “Someday someone will write a pathology of experimental physics and bring to light all those swindles which subvert our reason, beguile our judgement and, what is worse, stand in the way of any practical progress. The phenomena must be freed once and for all from their grim torture chamber of empiricism, mechanism, and dogmatism; they must be brought before the jury of man’s common sense. “
In 1849 AD, Samuel Rowbotham publishes first 16 page pamphlet edition of, Earth is Not A Globe.
In 1865 AD, Samuel Rowbotham publishes second 221 page edition of Earth is Not A Globe.
In 1881 AD, Academic Samuel Rowbotham publishes third and final 430 page edition, Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not a Globe!.
In 1891 AD, Freidrich Nietzsche wrote, “I am God’s advocate with the Devil, he however, is The Spirit of Gravity... Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity!”
On September 14th 1894 AD, first edition number three, of Leaves of Healing, a weekly paper espousing Flat Earth beliefs edited by Reverend John Alex Dowie, is published (Zion Publishing House, 1894).
In 1921 AD, polymath Rudolf Steiner lectures on The Chaldean Flat Earth and Heliocentric Doubts, citing Brahe and Goethe and accusing Newton and his school of heliocentricists of "heap[ing] fiction upon fiction”.
On 28th December, 1928 AD, Admiral Byrd arrives in Antarctica, building base he called, “little America” (Rodgers, 2002)
On May 27th, 1931 AD, Auguste Piccard and Paul Kipfer, lift off in a hot air balloon from Augsburg Germany ascending to a height of 51,775 feet, or 9.8 miles (spanning 18 hours covering 188 miles), and setting the world record for human elevation. Picard noted, "It seemed a flat disk with upturned edge."
On May 29th, 1931 AD, Piccard said in an interview with the Chicago Daily Tribune that, “The altitude of 9.956 was the highest we reached. A reporter wrote later in that article that after a cup of a tea, and feeling refreshed Piccard had stated, “The world seemed a strange place to him although he’d only been off it 18 hours.”
In August 1931 AD, Popular Science publishes an article about Piccard’s experience wherein it said from Piccard’s view at above nine thousand feet, “it seemed a flat disk with upturned edges”.
On July 10th, 1935 AD, an article in The New York Sun reports inventor Nikola Tesla rebuking Einstein for his paper on the theory of special relativity, calling it “a mass of error and deceptive ideas and opposed to common sense.”
In 1943 AD, US Military subsumes Galcit Rocket Project and renames it Jet Propulsion Laboratory (despite the fact they did not work on Jet propulsion but rather rocket technology).
In 1954 AD, Admiral Byrd does an Longines Chronoscope Interview, in which he says Antarctica is, “...by far the most valuable and important place left in the world for science... because it happens to be an untouched reservoir of natural resources” adding, “[there is] enough coal within 180 miles of the south pole to supply the whole world for quite a while. There’s evidence of many other minerals. We think there is oil there and there is evidence there is uranium there... It’s the most peaceful nation of earth but I don’t think it will be for long” (Byrd, 1954) He describes the north and south regions in this way, “The north pole is the center of an ocean 10,000 feet deep. The south pole center of a plateau 10,000 feet high. The north pole is sea surrounded by continents slightly frozen.” Then he describes the periphery of the continent in this way, “The Antarctic continent is surrounded by a belt of ice - frozen seas - of at least twelve hundred miles thick” (Ibis).
In October of 1958 AD, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration - NASA - is founded and JPL is traded from the hands of the US Army to this new agency.
In 1956 AD, The Flat Earth Society is founded by Samuel Shenton as controlled opposition operation.
In 1959 AD, The Antarctic Treaty is signed, restricting unauthorized access to the southern continent.
In 1962 AD, US Military begins Operation Fishbowl, a series of high-altitude nuclear tests.
On January 27th, 1967 AD, Apollo One test explodes at Cape Kennedy killing three astronauts.
On July 16th, 1969 AD, Apollo 11 launches from Cape Kennedy carrying Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin.
On July 20th, 1969 AD, Neil Armstrong walks on the moon, taking “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
On September 16th 1969 AD, Neil, Michael and Buzz recount their lunar mission like school boys in detention at the principle’s office.
In 1994 AD, at Apollo 11’s 25th Anniversary, Astronaut Neil Armstrong said these words, “Today we have with us a group of students among America’s best. To you we say we have only competed a beginning. We leave you much that is undone. There are great ideas undiscovered, breakthroughs available, to those who can remove one of truths protective layers.”
In 1996 AD, The Arctic Council is established, regulating access to our northern most region.
On December 11th, 2001 AD, Comedian George Carlin calls The People in the Space Program "Social Criminals and Nass-holes” in his 17th album entitled, ‘Complaints and Grievances’.
On April 22nd, 2013 AD, Google releases image of Flat Earth for Earth Day.
On May 13th, 2013 AD, Researcher Eric Dubay uploads Moon Landing Doubt Video of Alex Jones.
On December 14th, 2013 AD, NASA taps SpaceX for use of Kennedy Launch Pad, specifically Launch Complex 39 (LC-39), (MENA Report, 2013).
On December 19th, 2014 AD, Researcher Eric Dubay posts his first Flat Earth Video entitled, The Flat Earth Conspiracy, with President Obama saying, “We don’t have time for a meeting with the Flat Earth Society.”
On April 30th, 2015 AD, Alabama Representatives Butler, Farley, Wingo, Ainsworth, Nordgren, Ball, Fridy, Wood, McCutcheon, and Rich Read Bill for Education Policy Reform, “This bill would require the State Board of Education, local boards of education and staff of K-12 public schools to create an environment that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about scientific subjects. This bill would also allow public shool teachers to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review the sceintific strengths and scientific weaknesses of all existing scientific theories covered in a science course.”
On August 24, 2015 AD, Airspacemag.com publishes an article about August Piccard, wherein he describes the container Piccard went up in., “It was raised by a giant balloon (the largest to date), some thirty-three yards in diameter and holding 500,000 cubic feet of highly flammable hydrogen gas. When fully expanded, once its gases were warmed by the sun’s rays, it rose at speeds of twenty miles per hour, pear-shaped at first but eventually rounded. It was a “perfect sphere” in Piccard’s words and a rival to the morning star, still visible after daylight, which several observers even confused with his craft.” (This language is awfully similar to language used to describe the shape of the earth.)
On January 24th, 2016 AD, at 4:05 PM (PST) Rapper B.O.B. challenges anyone to explain a lack of curvature between two sets of buildings 16 miles apart, mentions no conversion to feet.
On January 25, 2016 AD, at at 7:44 AM (PST) Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson replies to B.O.B.'s tweet, saying earth's curve does indeed block 150 ft (not 170 ft), but Manhattan buildings are "wayyy taller than that". Tyson confirms a curvature measurement of miles squared time 8 inches by mentioning 170 ft... (16X16=256, 256X8=2,048, 2048/12=170.667 ft), yet offers no explanation for his deduction of 20ft to reach 150ft.
On May 28th, 2016 AD, David Wolfe says at a Flat Earth Panel at Lightning in a Bottle, “As far as we know, the Earth is optically flat. Anything other than optically flat, you’re gonna have to figure out for yourselves, but that’s just something you gotta deal with.”
On February 16th, 2017 AD, NBA star Kyrie Irving announces in an airplane at 30,000 feet on Road Trippin’ with RJ and Channin Podcast that the earth is flat.
On February 19th, 2017 AD, NBA star Lebron James endorses Kyrie’s belief calling him an interesting guy, then asks Kyrie from across the room, “Yo, Kyrie! The earth is flat right?” Kyrie responds, “Yeah!”
On April 3, 2017 AD, the existence of a Flat Earth PhD Thesis at The University of Sfax, Tunesia, entitled, "The Flat Earth Model, Arguments and Impacts on Climate and Paleo-Climate Studies." is reported on by a popular French magazine due to heavy academic uproar noting the student's advisor Jamel Touir reports being under "malicious attack" for his constitutional right to "freedom of thought" and "academic freedom". Touir notes of his student that they "wanted to review the theory of gravitation of the Earth around the Sun, proposing the inverse hypothesis. It's just a rought draft." (Further research indicates it may have been a hoax, a fabricated punching bag, in other words an engineered situation to highlight an opposition narrative.)
On September 9th, 2017, in Zurich, Switzerland, WaykiWayki delivers an incendiary lecture on Geocentric Direct Realism.
On November 9th & 10th, 2017 AD, approximately 600 people attended the Flat Earth Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, and according to Robbie Davidson "they hope to double it next year."

  WORKS CITED*

Bacon, Francis, and Thomas Fowler. Novum Organum. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889. Print.
Boorstin, Daniel J. The Discoverers. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2011.
Byrd, E. Richard. Interview by Kenneth Crawford and Larry Lesueur. Longines Chronoscope Interviews. V. 15, 1954.
Fox, Killian. “August Picard: The Physicist who went Stratospheric.” TheGuardian.com. 26 Mar. 2011,
Graham, Daniel. “Anaxamenes” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Digital.
   http://www.iep.utm.edu/anaximen/
Hesiod. Shield of Achilles. 750 BC.
   https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/mar/27/auguste-piccard-will-gregory
Homer, , Robert Fagles, and Bernard Knox. The Iliad. , 1998. Print.
I.L. Finkel, 'A join to the Map of the World: a notable discovery', British Museum Magazine: the Journal of the British Museum Friends pp. 26-27 Winter 1995.
Needham, Joseph. "Science and Civilisation in China". Needham Research Institute. 2008.
“New Apparatus Transmits Energy.” The New York Sun. July 10. 1935
   https://goo.gl/images/uxWmCJ
Rodgers, Eugene. “Richard E. Byrd’s First Antarctic Expedition”. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 2002.
Smith, G. Michael. “A Race to the Stratosphere in 1933” Airspacemag.com. Aug 24. 2015,
   http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/race-stratosphere-1933-180956387/
“Ten Miles High in an Air-Tight Ball.” Popular Science Magazine, pg 23 Aug. 1931,
   https://books.google.com/books?id=BCgDAAAAMBAJ
“Two Almost Die in Balloon’s Cage.” Chicago Daily Tribune, pg 1. May 29. 1931,
   http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1931/05/29/page/1/article/fly-10-miles-high-tell-story
"United States : NASA Selects SpaceX to Begin Negotiations for use of Historic Launch Pad." MENA Report, 2013, Research Library,
   https://search.proquest.com/docview/1468026755?accountid=37892.

* Not all citations are yet accounted for, this is a work in progress.

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