Current teaching of History is improving from when we went to
   school. They're starting to show multiple competing perspectives
   which allows for discussion and critical thinking.

   I happen to take view #3. You happen to take view #1.

   Such is the nature of historical belief.

   [1]http://teachinghistory.org/issues.../research-brief/19265
   The first source below represents the popularity of the "flat
   earth"story in the 19th century. The second shows that knowledge
   of the round earth preceded Columbus and his voyage. And the
   third addresses one question generated by these two: Was there a
   great interruption in European geographic knowledge?

   1. Columbus was one of the comparatively few people who at that
   time believed the earth to be round. The general belief was that
   it was flat, and that if one should sail too far west on the
   ocean, he would come to the edge of the world, and fall off.
   (Eggleston, 1904, p.12)

   2. Scholars believe the sculpture, Atlas Farnese (above, left),
   was made sometime after 150 A.D. Named for the collection of
   which it is now a part, it was found in Rome in 1575. The
   globe's representation of the vernal equinox helped scholars
   date the sculpture.

   3. Dramatic to be sure, but entirely fictitious. There never was
   a period of "flat earth darkness" among scholars (regardless of
   how many uneducated people may have conceptualized our planet
   both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded,
   and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth's roundness
   as an established fact of cosmology . . . Virtually all major
   medieval scholars affirmed the earth's roundness . . . (Gould,
   1995, p. 42) Of course. that's the point. But why promote
   progress in technology and science while hanging on to 19th
   century beliefs about history? That I'll never understand.
   Besides, Draper was a propagandist. He had an agenda, wasn't shy
   about it, made it very clear. He was also very successful at
   promoting it.

References

   Visible links
   1. http://teachinghistory.org/issues-and-research/research-brief/19265