"No in fact most people believed the world was round, there was however a belief that the world was actually larger then what we eventually discovered. As well my original goal wasn't to circumnavigate the globe so I would not have gone anywhere near the edge of the world"
If the people back then thought it was larger, then it was not by much. The ancient Greeks came up with some accurate measurements, and the Medieval/Renaissance scholars cribbed off of those guys. And according to those measurements if Columbus hadn't stumbled upon North America, then he would have starved at sea. Mind you Christopher Columbus fudged a lot of numbers to sell his voyage to the King/Queen of Spain (mostly by making them small enough so that he wouldn't starve getting to China), and he was pretty egomaniacal if I remember correctly, so I'm not terribly surprised at his lines.
He stumbled on Central America btw. On an island. The first to discover North America was Jacques Cartier.
And Colombus was trying to get in India. Which was within known lands.
Yeah, I know he only reached the Caribbean, I was just simplifying for some reason. Can't remember why.
Oh, and if you want to get really specific Lief Eriksson was the first to discover North America. Well, first European. Obviously the Native Americans had been there for millennium.
Was Columbus specifically looking for India? I guess he must have if he called the Native Indians, though that might have just been due to their skin colour.He was just looking for the East in general. European knowledge of geography of that area was nebulous at best, and I remember reading, in his account of the first voyage, how he was looking for the islands of Japan.